Formula 1 has formally announced that from 2026 the Canadian Grand Prix will move to earlier in the calendar to “rationalise” the schedule with an expected link with Miami.
In a statement issued on Monday, F1 said that the Montreal race was “planned to be scheduled on the third or fourth weekend of May each year”, rather than mid-June as it has typically been held in recent seasons.
The move follows last week’s news that the Monaco GP is also shifting from what had become its traditional slot at the end of May to the first weekend of June from 2026 onwards, as part of its contract extension to 2031.
This had been expected to allow space for the Montreal round, which is also contracted until 2031, to shift forwards and more logically be twinned with the Miami race that has been held in early May since it joined the calendar in 2022.
In 2025, the season will start with an Oceania-Asia leg from Australia to Japan via China, before heading to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
The last two races have typically opened the season in recent years but they have moved to later in 2025 due to the timing of Ramadan.
Even if they were to move back to starting the season from 2026, a Miami-Canada leg would remove a problematic standalone Atlantic crossing for all the teams from their European bases and create a single Europe season through the continent’s summer months.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19 at the start
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
F1’s statement said this move was part of its “efforts to rationalise the race calendar and make it more sustainable by hosting the event earlier than has been the practice in recent years”.
This includes moving Japan from its previously traditional end-of-season slot towards the start, with Baku going in the other direction and Qatar now being twinned with Abu Dhabi after being an earlier standalone in 2023.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said: “I am incredibly grateful to the promoter and all of the government stakeholder partners involved in the Canadian GP, from the local, to the provincial and national government.
“We applaud the tremendous effort from all involved to accelerate the temporary build of the event, to be ready to host the F1 community earlier than in the past.
“The change will make the future flow of our calendar not only more sustainable, but logistically more sensible for our teams and personnel.
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