Next year’s Japanese Grand Prix could be moved to the last weekend of March, if the plans made by Formula One’s CEO Stefano Domenicali come to fruition, Report informs referring to GrandPrix.com.
The sport’s commercial rights’ owner is planning a massive overhaul of its calendar for next year, in a bid to seriously reduce the carbon footprint created by the tremendous amount of long flights the teams and all the equipment have to currently take.
With the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix promoters having now changed their minds for the second time in one month and wanting, again, to host next year’s inaugural race, what’s now scheduled is that Formula One will test in Bahrain between February 22 and 24, before moving to Jeddah, where the first race will be held on March 3, one week before the start of the Ramadan.
With this religious event lasting until April 8, no other races can be held in Muslim countries for five weeks, so Domenicali’s plan is to move the Australian Grand Prix forward by two weeks, to March 17, right at the end of the local summer, but then wants the return of the Chinese Grand Prix to be on March 24, quickly followed by the Japanese Grand Prix on March 31.