F1 2024 season starts with saturday races, to feature 24 races.

Formula One’s 24-race 2024 season will start with Saturday races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the series confirmed on Wednesday.

The season will kick off with the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 2 and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix the following week on March 9.

The two races have been shifted forwards as Ramadan starts the day after the Saudi race, Sunday, March 10.

It also means the race format follows the weekend schedule in the Middle East, which is held Friday-Saturday rather than Saturday-Sunday.

F1 races are traditionally held on a Sunday but 2024 will feature three a day earlier — the Las Vegas Grand Prix will be held on a Saturday in 2024, as it will be for its inaugural race in November of this year.

One major change to the make-up of the 2024 schedule to 2023 is that Azerbaijan and Japan have swapped ends of the calendar. Japan, which was once the F1 season finale, has now moved from the second half of the year to being the fourth race, between Australia and China.

Azerbaijan’s popular Baku race will now form a double header with Singapore in September.

The status of the Chinese Grand Prix will be a question mark, as it has not hosted a race since 2019 due to Covid-19.

If that race goes ahead and F1 avoids any other cancellations the season will feature a record 24 races, the most currently allowed under the regulations.

The season will end at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on December 8, which has been the finale every year since 2014.