Never so soon since 1992
Formula 1 fans are already starting to miss the Grand Prix but winter break is coming to an end. The first appointment of the new season – after the traditional tests – will be first weekend of March, in Bahrain. Exceptionally, the first two rounds of the year – in Sakhir and Jeddah – will see the GP brought forward to Saturday, to give space to the beginning of the month of Ramadan. The championship will start on March 2nd and this will be the 'earliest' date in the last 32 years.
Also in 2023 the World Cup started on the first weekend of March – this time 'traditionally' on Sunday – on the 5th. March 2nd is 'grazing' on the start day of the 1992 seasonwhich was taken in South Africa – therefore on the other side of the planet – on the first day of the third month of the year.
When we started on January 1st…
Since 1983 – with the exception of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic – the F1 championship has always started in March or April. In the first three decades of the category's history, however, it was not at all uncommon the season even began in January.
This is due to the competition venues chosen in the southern hemisphere – such as South Africa, but also Argentina – where the first months of the year are the summer ones. Impossible to beat the records of the 1965 and 1968 seasons, when the first race took place on January 1st. In both cases the event did not take place on a Sunday – it was Friday in 1965, Monday in 1968 – and 4-5 months would then pass before the second world championship.
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