
A draft of the 2010 race calendar, revealed to teams at Spa on Saturday, shows that Bahrain will host the season-opening Grand Prix of next season. Other notable changes see China moving to a September slot, before Singapore, with the Canadian Grand Prix making a welcome return to the sport.
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| Ecclestone's FOM is commercial rights holder for the sport |
With the official calendar to be confirmed in October, Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management (FOM) released the most recent version of the agenda to confirm that F1 will return to an 18-race championship next year, one more than this, with the action climaxing in Abu Dhabi one week later than in 2009.
With Ecclestone standing by his decision to have the Australian Grand Prix at 'twilight' hours - to attract larger European television audiences - and a subsequent late March date (due to daylight saving), the Englishman is highly considering the possibility of slotting Bahrain to the front of queue for a second time, after 2006.
Canada's return would see the popular Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal back on the schedule with Valencia's race being moved to June in order to avoid its current position in Spain's August holiday period.
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| Australia will remain a twilight race, but the second of the season |
The British Grand Prix will take place at Donington Park or, in the case of the venue not being ready, being labelled as the European Grand Prix and held at Silverstone; such a happening would result in Valencia's race taking the title of Mediterranean Grand Prix.
The German Grand Prix has been pencilled in as being hosted at Hockenheim - despite reports this year that the venue would not hold a race again - and the European season now looks to be kicking off in Istanbul as opposed to Barcelona. The schedule also includes a pair of back-to-back sets of weekends as well as a trio of three-week breaks between races.
The provisional 2010 calendar is as follows:
March 14 - Bahrain (Sakhir)
March 28 - Australia (Melbourne)
April 4 - Malaysia (Sepang)
April 25 - Turkey (Istanbul)
May 9 - Spain (Barcelona)
May 23 - Monaco (Monte-Carlo)
June 6 - Canada (Montreal)
June 27 - Europe (Valencia)
July 11 - Great Britain (Donington Park)
July 25 - Germany (Hockenheim)
August 1 - Hungary (Budapest)
August 22 - Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)
September 5 - Italy (Monza)
September 19 - China (Shanghai)
September 26 - Singapore (Singapore)
October 10 - Japan (Suzuka)
October 24 - Brazil (Interlagos)
November 7 - Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
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