Australia to open the Formula 1 season in 2025 as Bahrain and Saudi races shift for Ramadan
LONDON (AP) — Lewis Hamilton’s first race in a Ferrari will be in Australia.
Next year’s Formula 1 season will open in Melbourne for the first time since 2019 after the full calendar for 2025 was revealed Friday.
The Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne will be the opening race because the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds of the F1 championship — the first two races of this year — are shifting to mid-April dates to avoid a clash with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Next year, seven-time champion Hamilton will be starting a new era in his career when he s witches to Ferrari for 2025. That will follow 12 years with Mercedes, where Hamilton has won six titles.
Australia was last scheduled to host the opening race in 2020 but it was canceled hours before the Friday practice session was due to begin as the COVID-19 pandemic began.
After Australia, the next races on the 2025 calendar will be in China and then Japan, fitting F1’s plans to cut the travel distance between its events where possible with an eye to the sport’s environmental impact.