f1 schedule

The planet’s most expensive mobile circus has published its 2025 itinerary, and—surprise—everywhere it lands it will find locals protesting, politicians posing, and hoteliers salivating like greyhounds at the starting gate. Twenty-four races, five continents, one global pandemic’s worth of carbon footprint: the Formula 1 calendar is back, and this year it is even more determined to outrun reality.

Start with the geography lesson. The season kicks off in Melbourne on 16 March, because nothing says “spring awakening” quite like jet-lagged millionaires doing 320 km/h past a dormant St. Kilda beach. From there, the caravan migrates to Shanghai, where the government will remind spectators that human rights are a Western hobby while simultaneously scanning their faces to see if they clapped hard enough for Zhou Guanyu. Jeddah follows, offering high-speed straights and low-speed justice. The paddock will be shepherded through a purpose-built marina where yachts gleam like freshly laundered money, while a short drive away, cranes still dangle over half-finished “Vision 2030” vanity towers—because nothing distracts from geopolitical awkwardness like a good fly-over shot.

By May the circus reaches Miami, where the city’s humidity competes with drivers’ egos to see which can expand fastest. The track snakes around the Hard Rock Stadium, conveniently close to a Dave & Buster’s, so fans can watch million-dollar shunts on TV while eating buffalo wings under fluorescent lighting. Europe then reclaims its ancestral right to smugness with a triple-header: Imola, Monaco, Barcelona. The Italians will serve pasta to anyone who still believes Ferrari can win; the Monegasques will serve champagne to anyone who can pronounce “tax efficiency”; and the Catalans will serve separatist chants disguised as engine noise.

The summer swing takes us to Budapest and Spa—classic venues whose governments have discovered that subsidizing tire smoke is cheaper than subsidizing healthcare—before the freight jumbos lumber east again. Singapore’s night race is essentially a Bloomberg terminal with floodlights: every grandstand seat costs more than the annual GDP of Tuvalu, yet still sells out to consultants who expense it as “client relationship building.” Then it’s on to Baku, a street circuit that threads past medieval walls and 21st-century flame towers, a juxtaposition that looks suspiciously like a metaphor for the sport itself.

The Americas leg is where F1’s contradictions reach full bloom. Austin’s Circuit of the Americas will host 140,000 people who claim to care about sustainability while clutching single-use cowboy hats. Mexico City’s altitude will make engines gasp and lungs reconsider life choices. São Paulo promises rain, redemption, and at least one tearful podium interview that doubles as a Brazilian telenovela subplot. Finally, Las Vegas returns—because if you’re going to race past the Sphere and a replica Eiffel Tower, you might as well do it at 1 a.m. local time, ensuring European TV audiences can watch through bloodshot eyes and existential dread.

Which brings us to Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the season’s closing double act. Qatar has air-conditioned grandstands to keep spectators cool while the planet warms; Abu Dhabi has a twilight start so the sun sets in sync with the championship finale, a cosmic flourish that suggests even celestial mechanics now have a broadcast director.

And what does the world get for this 24-stop world tour? A carbon footprint the size of a small nation-state, economic windfalls that rarely trickle past the paddock gates, and a reminder that soft power these days comes with Pirelli branding. The drivers—mercenaries in fireproof onesies—will speak earnestly about “growing the sport,” a phrase that sounds suspiciously like “growing the balance sheet.” Meanwhile, fans from Jakarta to Johannesburg will set alarms for 3 a.m., convinced that watching rich men turn left and right somehow knits the globe together.

Perhaps it does. Or perhaps the F1 schedule is just the modern version of empire: faster, louder, and with better graphics. Either way, the lights go out in Melbourne in March, and somewhere a customs officer stamps another carnet, wondering why the cargo is labeled “sport” when it smells an awful lot like politics, money, and a faint whiff of burning rubber.