Belgian Grand Prix to join F1 rotation system with fresh four-race deal

Spa’s Belgian Grand Prix has signed a contemporary four-race contract extension because it joins Components 1’s deliberate rotational system.

The occasion at Spa-Francorchamps will host 4 F1 races over the subsequent six seasons – 2026, 2027, 2029, and 2031 – and can drop off the calendar in 2028 and 2030.

The Belgian race’s contract was set to run out after this 12 months’s version, with the organisers pushing for a contemporary five-year deal.

However with curiosity from potential venues to host a grand prix at an all-time excessive, and F1 notably eager to develop into Asia, Spa had lengthy been earmarked as certainly one of a number of European rounds to enter a rotational system.

The top result’s a compromise that may hand Spa, which relies on monetary backing by the Walloon authorities, an extended working deal that enables it to put in writing off investments and transfer away from its current run of tense short-term contract extensions. It additionally permits F1 the pliability so as to add a brand new venue to the calendar with out stretching past the restrict of 24 races per season.

Spa’s deal leaves simply the futures of Barcelona and Imola to be determined, with each races additionally dealing with expiring offers. Like Spa, Imola’s present deal is working out after this season, whereas Barcelona’s final races is at the moment scheduled in 2026, when it loses its Spanish Grand Prix moniker to a brand new race in Madrid.

The aforementioned races have seen competitors for European slots diminish in current months after organisers of Zandvoort’s Dutch Grand Prix decided to draw the curtain on its event after the 2026 edition.

The Belgian Grand Prix, initially held on a fearsome 14km nation street loop across the Ardennes forests, was one of many eight authentic races on the world championship’s inaugural calendar in 1950.

After spells in Zolder and Nivelles, F1 returned to a curtailed and modernised Spa-Francorchamps within the 80s, with the favored Ardennes circuit nonetheless thought to be a fan and driver favorite. Spa has hosted the Belgian Grand Prix yearly since 1985, with two interruptions in 2003 and 2006.