F1 Confirms the Middle East Finale and Imola Is Stood Down

Formula One Management informed the teams on Tuesday that the 2026 season will finish where the published calendar always said it would, in Qatar on 29 November and in Abu Dhabi on 6 December, and that preparations at Imola have been stood down. All 11 teams were told of the decision, and all of them supported proceeding, subject to ongoing security assessments. Imola had been held as a fallback for the 6 December slot, with F1 even paying for preparations at a circuit that might never have been used, on the grounds that a venue cannot be left on standby indefinitely.

Two rounds of the season have already been lost to the same regional situation. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were postponed at the beginning of the year, and the Bahrain race was eventually run after an agreement that enabled Malaysia to host it. Teams and drivers largely supported the FIA and FOM position in Brazil last weekend, as the debate about where the season would end intensified.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem posted on Instagram that the federation is prepared for Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and the governing body confirmed that preparations for the double-header are under way. The closest thing anyone has to a read on conditions is MotoGP, which raced its Qatar round at Lusail last weekend.

What the confirmation does and does not settle is worth stating plainly. The calendar now ends after 23 rounds, one fewer than in 2025, and the Formula 2 title will be decided on track, because the series supports Formula 1 at both remaining events. The fallback, though, is gone. If the situation worsens and either race is cancelled after this announcement, there is nothing left to fill the slot, and the season would finish at Las Vegas on 21 November with 21 races.

Both championships have already been clinched, Antonelli in Mexico and Mercedes in Brazil. All that is left is second place for the drivers and third for the constructors.

The cost of keeping a spare race alive is part of the story. Circuits need marshals, freight, broadcast infrastructure and local permissions, and a date held in reserve blocks all of it for everybody else. Imola was kept ready for weeks while the sport waited, and the decision to stand it down is as much about logistics as about security, with three weeks still to go before the first of the two confirmed rounds.