The Las Vegas Grand Prix will keep its late 10pm start time for its second running this year, despite complaints from teams and others in F1 over the challenges presented by its schedule.
The FIA has confirmed the starting times for all 24 grands prix on the 2024 F1 calendar. The vast majority are unchanged, though the starting time for the Miami Grand Prix has been put back by half an hour.The session times for the six sprint events on the calendar – at Shanghai, Miami, Red Bull Ring, Circuit of the Americas, Interlagos and Losail – are yet to be confirmed. The timings for the practice and qualifying sessions in Las Vegas have also not been set, as F1 explores ways to improve the race’s schedule.
F1’s longest-ever calendar has already provoked concerns from teams and drivers about the demands placed upon staff. The timings of the new Las Vegas Grand Prix proved especially punishing last year.
In order to allow the roads which make up the Las Vegas Strip Circuit to be opened to daytime traffic, F1 was confined to using the track only after nightfall. This meant second practice and qualifying were scheduled to start at midnight.
The schedule had to be adjusted after the first practice session was abandoned when a water valve cover damaged two cars. The second practice session did not finish until 4am.
F1 is under pressure to find ways to ease the strain of the Las Vegas schedule this year when the event is the first of three on consecutive weekends. The following round takes place in Qatar, meaning F1 staff will also have to adjust to an 11-hour difference in time zones.
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Following last year’s race Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said the schedule was the first point F1 needed to address before its return. “It’s been a brutal weekend for everyone behind the scenes and I think we need to look at how we can improve that for the future.”
The 10pm Saturday start time for the Las Vegas race means it will take place at 7am for viewers in western Europe, 6am for those in Britain and 1am in the east cost of the USA.
Although most race start times are unchanged for the new season, changes in race dates mean fans in some parts of the world will have to adjust their viewing plans compared to last year. For fans in Britain, the Australian Grand Prix will start at 4am instead of 6am, partly due to when the changes in daylight savings time fall this year.
2024 grand prix starting times
| Round | Event | Date | Starting time (local) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bahrain Grand Prix | 02/03/2024 | 18:00 |
| 2 | Saudi Arabian Grand Prix | 09/03/2024 | 20:00 |
| 3 | Australian Grand Prix | 24/03/2024 | 15:00 |
| 4 | Japanese Grand Prix | 07/04/2024 | 14:00 |
| 5 | Chinese Grand Prix | 21/04/2024 | 15:00 |
| 6 | Miami Grand Prix | 05/05/2024 | 16:00 |
| 7 | Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix | 19/05/2024 | 15:00 |
| 8 | Monaco Grand Prix | 26/05/2024 | 15:00 |
| 9 | Canadian Grand Prix | 09/06/2024 | 14:00 |
| 10 | Spanish Grand Prix | 23/06/2024 | 15:00 |
| 11 | Austrian Grand Prix | 30/06/2024 | 15:00 |
| 12 | British Grand Prix | 07/07/2024 | 15:00 |
| 13 | Hungarian Grand Prix | 21/07/2024 | 15:00 |
| 14 | Belgian Grand Prix | 28/07/2024 | 15:00 |
| 15 | Dutch Grand Prix | 25/08/2024 | 15:00 |
| 16 | Italian Grand Prix | 01/09/2024 | 15:00 |
| 17 | Azerbaijan Grand Prix | 15/09/2024 | 15:00 |
| 18 | Singapore Grand Prix | 22/09/2024 | 20:00 |
| 19 | United States Grand Prix | 20/10/2024 | 14:00 |
| 20 | Mexican Grand Prix | 27/10/2024 | 14:00 |
| 21 | Brazilian Grand Prix | 03/11/2024 | 14:00 |
| 22 | Las Vegas Grand Prix | 23/11/2024 | 22:00 |
| 23 | Qatar Grand Prix | 01/12/2024 | 20:00 |
| 24 | Abu Dhabi Grand Prix | 08/12/2024 | 17:00 |
Get all the 2024 F1 race weekend dates, session times plus test and launch details on your mobile device using the RaceFans F1 Calendar
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Dex
17th January 2024, 10:05
Visit Las Vegas GP. Experience the sadistic side of F1.
Every circus needs clowns…
Tristan
17th January 2024, 10:18
I just can’t pick who cares less sometimes, the FIA or Formula One’s management group.
Together they make a stellar example of the pinnacle of corporate management and government bodies.
Avro Anson (@avroanson)
17th January 2024, 10:28
It works for me – that’s a Sunday afternoon here in GMT+8.
But seriously, FIA and F1 need to consider the effects of fatigue on drivers and crew. Truck drivers or airline pilots wouldn’t be allowed to work these rosters, but we expect race drivers to do so.
Asd
17th January 2024, 12:22
I’m quite sure the drivers are actually the least affected demographic here. They only have a total of what: 10 hours of work during a whole weekend? Plus some media appointments that can be done sitting half-asleep in a chair.
Meanwhile, most other crew members have 10 hours of work done just to set-up the garage on day 1… or even before it.
Ω (@omega)
17th January 2024, 12:44
I agree that the crews are probably even more affected than the drivers, but I feel you’re a bit unfair to the drivers.
All these drivers work a lot more than just the time they are sat in the car, they spend many, many hours in the garage with the crew, talking to the factory etc.
S
17th January 2024, 10:55
I don’t see any problem here…
A lot of people (myself included) work long shifts at any time of day and night, often on consecutive days and on a rotating roster.
This is the entertainment business – this is exactly how it works, and nobody is being forced to do it under duress.
A M (@amam)
17th January 2024, 11:00
Where is Keith’s usual end of season car/team performance article? Have i missed it?
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
17th January 2024, 11:14
You see? health issues alone aren’t a strong enough argument for a change. Only economic reasons. Why would teams complain yet accept about expanding calendars or unnecesary transatlantic travel? because it works finantially. Never mind the mechanics that travel around the world… if it means economic benefit they’ll do it.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th January 2024, 12:16
Even teams won’t accept literally anything at all costs, though, as everything always has a limit, especially practical & logistcal ones.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
17th January 2024, 15:49
@jerejj practical and logistical limits are still finantial limits. The only reason this is a burden to the mechanics is because teams can’t hire more people since it’s not feasible economically. The health issues involved are a secondary reason. Teams are saying “this is our workforce, this is the limit” but in reality they are shouting “let us hire more people, raise the cost cap a bit, because there’s profit to be had if we did”.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th January 2024, 9:33
@fer-no65 Teams being unable to cover literally any GP amounts even with maximum staff rotation is precisely my point & of course cost cap won’t get raised for the sake of raising.
S
18th January 2024, 11:15
Teams will complain no matter what.
Even if the cap was raised, they’d just put more staff into development duties – not into extra race/track/transport crews.
They could swap a few existing staff from the design office out into track rotation – but that won’t make their car any faster, will it….
Tristan
17th January 2024, 12:35
The checks and balances that are supposed to stop profit at any cost don’t exist or aren’t functioning correctly. Capitalism was never designed to regulate itself to provide safe conditions (for humanity or the planet). It’s progress and therefore profit at all costs (for which it does great).
This is across all industries and not just Formula 1. F1 just makes, I think, an excellent public case study. If there was any interest in being a net good for society other than a distracting entertainment product. F1 could do great things for society leading by example.
Instead we get this, ignoring all warnings and red flags and pushing ahead with commercial interests at the forefront. If something bad happens there’ll be quotes of nobody being able to predict it, and investigations launched as to how, and blame appropriately avoided.
But hey, at least we have the distracting entertainment. And there unironically is great value in that.
MichaelN
17th January 2024, 23:21
They are, but the limits haven’t been reached. The teams will grumble a bit, but they’ll go along with it. As will their employees because in the grand scheme of things their jobs really aren’t that bad, and working an awkwardly scheduled weekend is not a big issue.
F1 could certainly do better on the calendar, but it’s already getting better. The awkward four week gap just after the summer break seems like a scheduling problem that resulted from Japan being moved to April and Qatar being bumped to later on after the numerous weather-related complaints in 2023.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th January 2024, 5:39
MichaelN Qatar’s move had nothing to do with weather as the race calendar got confirmed in July.
SadF1fan
18th January 2024, 0:54
@Tristan: incorrect. Capitalism is merely a representation of what humans consider important.
As a consumer you have a choice where to consume, as a laborer you have a choice where to labor.
You can choose less wealth and more inconvenience, most choose more wealth and less inconvenience.
The results of capitalism aren’t because of capitalism but because of human cultural choices.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
17th January 2024, 18:01
+ 1
Jere (@jerejj)
17th January 2024, 12:16
Largely unchanged as expected, although the wording regarding Qatar GP is incorrect because last season’s race indeed started at 20:00, so merely unchanged, which is somewhat weird because the inaugural race started at 17:00.
I expected Chinese GP to get an hour later start time than most recently, although the same with the Japanese GP as Suzuka’s April sunset times give more flexibility.
I’m also slightly surprised about AusGP keeping 15:00, even though March races used to have 16:00 for a while pre-2020, with sunset times varying between 19:14 & 19:45.
Regarding Miami GP, while it’ll be in line with all other races having an on-the-hour start time, I struggle to comprehend what’s wrong with starting that race at 15:00 or even 14:00 like the other daylight North American races, especially the Canadian GP in the same time zone, not to mention some IndyCar races start even earlier despite being mainly targeted for viewers in NA rather than global & especially Europe.
Ironically, Bahrain GP has belatedly received the same treatment as the Abu Dhabi GP post-2021 with qualifying having a different start time to race (& FP2).
SA GP seemingly still has the same for all three equivalent sessions.
FOM & FIA should simply return to the traditional full consistency for all standard format events, i.e., FP2-QLF-Race sharing a start time & likewise FP1/3.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th January 2024, 12:40
I forgot to alter the opening paragraph about Qatar GP timing after copy-pasting from elsewhere, but weird nevertheless because the sole point about postponing to 20:00 was to minimize the afternoon heat impact in October, an issue that doesn’t exist in November or December anyway.
Simon
19th January 2024, 1:08
A lot of words. So many words…
2024 Bingo starts right here and we begin with
01 ‘As expected’ / ‘As I expected’
04 Compulsory comment about session times / sunset times
05 Prediction/s that prove to be unfounded
06 Commenting before checking, then having to post a correction
Jere (@jerejj)
19th January 2024, 6:31
How surprising that you seemingly always come out of your cave only for certain matter-related articles.
Besides, no one’s perfect, so occasional mistakes, such as forgetting to alter some parts or paragraphs, are possible.
Additionally, I only mentioned some sunset times as a reference to lead time before them, which is different from the usual, etc.
You should really only post something relevant rather than always complaining about what others (& especially I) post.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
17th January 2024, 13:41
The calendar is also done really badly – there is a 4 week gap from Singapore to Austin yet Vegas, Qatar and Dubai are done in 16 days.
Same as last season a weird dash at the end with in total 10 races in 16 weekends after the summer break but 6 of those 10 races come in the last 7 weekends, so first 9 weeks after the break are easy going with just 4 races.
F1 should really pair races and have 2 races in a row and then a weekend free and do that throughout the season with a 4 week (3 weekends) break in the summer.
Australia and Japan are paired but with a week in between, although not sure Australia and Japan back to back would be a good thing – having a free weekend in between leaves the teams the problem of keeping all staff in Asia or have them all fly back to Europe to fly a week later back to Japan – not really ideal either and really bad for environment.
Making that even crazier is that next race in China is again with a free weekend while Japan and China back to back would work really well. So likely the far majority of staff is flying 3 return flights from Europe to Asia in the space of 4-5 weeks.
Only to fly to Miami before starting the Europe season which still gets interrupted by the odd Monaco, Montreal & Barcelona sequence – just for fun hop over the Atlantic and back but at least there is a free weekend before and after Montreal. But why are Miami and Canada not paired so that you have 2 races Middle east (back to back) followed by 3 races in 4 weekends in Asia, then with a free weekend before/after Miami/Canada back to back followed by the European races all paired with 2 back to back and a weekend off.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
17th January 2024, 18:09
I agree. Lots of dates just make no sense. On Las Vegas I don’t understand why there is this strange gap between Brazil and L.V. of 3 weeks! Then to be followed by a triple header.
Why is there a 4 week gap between Singapore and Austin? It’s very badly scheduled and I am surprised anyone agrees to this.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th January 2024, 20:50
Agree, for me when there’s 2 weeks between 2 races it’s already too long (provided they have any points of interest ofc) and instead of having consistent gaps between races they sometimes put a lot of races in very few weeks and other times have 3-4 weeks gaps, I also remember late last season was one of the race-stacked periods.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th January 2024, 5:42
@f1statsfan Miami & Montreal simply have limited flexibility because of certain climatic aspects, although I couldn’t agree more about the unnecessarily lengthy gaps, triple-headers, as well as having Melbourne, Suzuka, & Shanghai each as standalones, albeit to my knowledge, Shanghai still can’t be paired with any location because of custom logistics.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
18th January 2024, 1:52
As always, Liberty and the FIA have shown that they listen and take notice of feedback.
Clearly there was no feedback at all about the starting times or the compressed schedule, or if there was it was only to say what a wonderful event Vegas was and how well organised the schedule was.
The only reason we haven’t seen sprinklers yet is because Bernie floated the idea originally and not Liberty.