F1 Expands Sprint Calendar to 10 for 2027 - and Sends One to Monaco Anyway

At Monaco, a driver who claims pole on Saturday can generally expect to still be leading when the flag drops on Sunday, because the street circuit's tight confines leave almost no room for one car to pass another. Even so, the principality is getting a sprint weekend of its own in 2027. Formula 1 has confirmed its full 2027 World Championship calendar, and sprint events will climb from a previous ceiling of six in a season to ten - four extra weekends added in one go. Monaco joins Bahrain, Australia, Japan and Abu Dhabi as venues staging a sprint for the very first time, while Canada, Britain, Italy, Brazil and Qatar hang on to the sprint slots they already had. The increase amounts to four additional sprint weekends in a single calendar, and its trickiest assignment lands on a track built for a flawless qualifying lap rather than close racing.

The numbers behind the expansion

Six sprint weekends had been the cap in any one season up to now. Ten is the figure for 2027, confirmed alongside the wider calendar announcement - a rise of four events. The sprint format itself is unchanged: a shortened race on Saturday plus a bonus qualifying session on Friday, layered on top of the usual grand prix weekend. What has changed is which tracks get it. Five circuits are trying a sprint for the first time, and five keep the slot they already held.

Why Monaco, of all places?

Putting a sprint at Monaco is bound to raise eyebrows, since passing around the tight street track is close to unheard of. F1's argument for including it rests on something else entirely: qualifying. A sprint weekend at Monaco means two separate qualifying sessions rather than one, and a Monaco qualifying lap is already regarded as one of the standout moments of the season. Running qualifying twice could, in theory, produce two different starting grids and add an unpredictability that raceday alone struggles to deliver.

The catch sits inside that same logic. Because overtaking is so scarce at Monaco, the sprint's result will largely be settled by the end of the first lap, short of a crash. F1 is effectively offering Monaco fans an extra slice of qualifying drama dressed up as a race, betting that the novelty of a first-ever Monaco sprint outweighs how predictable its outcome is likely to be.

The commercial logic

Staging a sprint costs race organisers more, but demand for the format has grown because it improves the odds of shifting more tickets - competitive action spread across all three days of a meeting rather than qualifying on Saturday and a single race on Sunday. Silverstone is the example F1 points to: organisers there credit this year's sprint with helping deliver the British Grand Prix's highest-ever attendance, with 64,000 more fans coming through the gates across the four days than in the previous, non-sprint year.

F1 president and chief executive Stefano Domenicali framed the expansion as a deliberate push for more of that atmosphere, saying the calendar was designed to "expand sprint racing to 10 events, giving our fans even more intensity, drama, and the wheel-to-wheel action" the sport wants to be known for. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem struck a more measured tone about the calendar's overall shape, calling it "a strong reflection of the global appeal and continued growth of our sport."

A calendar written with an asterisk

Not every date on the 2027 calendar is locked in. The season is set to open in Bahrain across 12-14 March, with Saudi Arabia following a week later, but both rounds stay uncertain for as long as the war in the Middle East continues. That same uncertainty already hangs over how the current 2026 season finishes, which is due to close with rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi; F1 intends to complete that calendar as planned but is drawing up contingency options in case those races cannot happen because of the ongoing conflict between the US/Israel and Iran. The sport is also said to be weighing alternative ways to open 2027, should Middle East racing look unworkable before this year is out.

F1 has reshuffled its season-opening slot before. Bahrain is technically the default opener, but Australia has taken that job for the past two years because of when Ramadan falls. That precedent matters here: moving an opening race around is something the calendar has already done once, not a purely theoretical fallback.

Portugal and Turkey's return

Beyond the sprint expansion, 2027 brings back two circuits that last featured as stand-in events during the pandemic. Portugal returns on 18-20 June, and Turkey comes back on 1-3 October. Ben Sulayem pointed to both as proof of the calendar's reach, describing a 24-race season spanning five continents that combines "tradition, innovation and fan engagement" alongside the wider sprint programme. Pre-season testing is scheduled to be held in Bahrain across 24-27 February.

The British Grand Prix keeps its early-July date, running 2-4 July, and stays a sprint weekend - the format organisers there credit with pulling in those extra 64,000 attendees this year.

What it adds up to

Four additional sprint weekends is a fairly simple commercial wager: more ticketed days, more incentive for organisers to absorb the higher staging cost, more weekends that feel like a proper event rather than a single race day. Sending one of those four new sprints to Monaco is a different kind of bet - it leans on the strength of Monaco's qualifying reputation rather than on its racing. Whether that trade works out won't be clear until cars actually take the start of a Monaco sprint for the first time, a data point the sport has simply never had before.

Frequently Asked Questions

Research: This article uses the archived evidence supplied for this story. Story inspiration: BBC Sport's original report.