Why the 2026 F1 World Championship Will End at Imola

 Abstract

With the Qatar Grand Prix only weeks away, the season finale formally remains in the Gulf while Imola quietly prepares for the end of the season. Starting from the cancellations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and the protests of MotoGP riders, this article explains how and why the Romagna circuit is the most solid solution to close the season, with an Italian champion already crowned and the name of the race still to be settled.

The Background

The Bahrain Grand Prix was held in Sepang on 4th October, while the Saudi Arabian one was not hosted at all. It all stems from the war with Iran that began at the end of February and led, in mid-March, the FIA and Formula 1 to cancel the two April races and cut the calendar to 22 Grand Prix. The World Motor Sport Council ratified the change on 26th March.[1] The calendar remains an act of the Federation, and the Federation has shown that it can rewrite it mid-season: a useful precedent for what comes next.

The next question concerns the final two rounds. Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the 22nd and 23rd events on the calendar, have been still confirmed in the schedule, and on 3rd October Domenicali told Sky Sport Italia that the season would end there, having received reassurances from the organisers, while work on the grandstands continued at Imola as a contingency measure.[2] The key point, though, lies elsewhere: in July Domenicali himself had stated that, if the Gulf were unable to host the final rounds, the championship would finish in Europe.[3] According to reports, the teams have also been given a deadline, 10th November, after which the finale would move to Las Vegas. Formula 1 has not confirmed the information, but it gives a sense of the timeline.

MotoGP shows what happens when reassurances fail to convince those who must race. The Qatar Grand Prix, scheduled for 10th to 12th April, was postponed to 6th to 8th November in the belief that the war would be over by then.[4] It is not. During the Australian Grand Prix, the riders met and, according to some sources, two thirds of those present voted against the trip. A letter was then handed to the organisers at Sepang and Yamaha announced that it would not race. The answer was that a zero-risk environment does not exist, with a reference to sanctions. It is more than reasonable to consider the riders' requests well founded: they are not asking for the impossible but for something they are entitled to, namely, to have their safety protected and not be exposed to risks beyond those they already accept by racing.

Imola

Imola has a solid advantage over the alternatives: it has already started the preparation. The teams have booked their hotels, the grandstands are under construction and the 6th December slot, currently assigned to Abu Dhabi, is only waiting for a decision. The circuit is no gamble. It returned to the calendar in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, hosted Formula 1 until 2025 and, even though it is absent this year, there is still that promise of a return tied to the cancellation of the 2023 race.

The numbers complete the picture. With the Gulf out and the season ending in Las Vegas, the championship would drop from 23 to 21 races; with Imola it would stop at 22, and the final trip would stay clear of the routes through the region.

Imola is not without risks, however. As mentioned earlier, the 2023 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was cancelled because of the flood that hit the area, and a December race leaves a much narrower weather margin, not to mention the problems low temperatures can cause to the cars. That is the price of a solution put together in a few weeks, and for the same reason bringing the finale forward to the last week of November could be a far more prudent choice where the weather is concerned.

Then there is the sporting angle. Kimi Antonelli became world champion last weekend at the Mexican Grand Prix, aged 20, the first Italian to do so since Alberto Ascari in 1953.[5] Against that backdrop, ending the season in front of the home crowd and, more precisely, in the region where the champion was born would be a more than natural finale.

On this point the author is not starting from scratch. On 17th February was argued forcefully that the historic circuits (Imola, Spa and Monza) must stay on the calendar as part of Formula 1's heritage, and on 5th March was pointed to the Italian scenario, already tested during the pandemic, as the most credible answer to a lasting crisis in the Gulf.[6]

The one murky point remains the name. Corriere dello Sport spoke of an Emilia-Romagna and Made in Italy Grand Prix. This author suggests something different, in line with what has already happened this year: a race on the Bahrain-in-Sepang model, which moved the entire Grand Prix to Malaysia while keeping its name.[7] It would be unusual, to say the least, to see a "Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix" or a "Formula 1 Qatar Airways Qatar Grand Prix" at Imola, but it would be a price worth paying to see Imola back on the calendar.

Conclusion

The 2026 World Championship will end at Imola. The sequence of events says so, even before any impression does: Formula 1 announced in the summer that it would finish in Europe if the Gulf proved unworkable, let the work at Imola continue even after confirming the original programme and, while the war goes on, MotoGP is debating with its riders a trip to Qatar in the very days the United States strikes an Iranian island. The alternatives do not stand up to scrutiny. Las Vegas would cost a race, the Gulf would expose the teams to a risk that riders in another championship have already, rightly, said they are unwilling to take, and any other European circuit would have to start from zero on what Imola already has. Imola, therefore, is the only option that holds together safety, the number of races and the celebrations of the youngest world champion ever in front of his home crowd.

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[1]FIA, "2026 FIA Sporting calendars as approved by the World Motor Sport Council" (calendar approved by the WMSC on 10th June 2025 and amended on 26th March 2026), fia.com.

[2]Motorsport.com Italia, "F1, Domenicali conferma: si corre in Qatar e Abu Dhabi per chiudere il mondiale 2026", 3rd October 2026; GiornaleMotori, "F1 2026, Domenicali conferma Qatar e Abu Dhabi: Imola resta il piano B per il finale", 3rd October 2026.

[3]Sky Sports, "Formula 1: 2026 season to end in Europe if Qatar and Abu Dhabi unable to host final rounds because of Middle East conflict", July 2026.

[4]Al Jazeera, "MotoGP postpones Qatar Grand Prix due to Middle East conflict", 15th March 2026.

[5]RaceFans, "2026 Mexican Grand Prix race result and championship points", 1st November 2026.

[6]D. Beatrice, "A Formula 1 Manifesto: Beyond the 2026 Regulations", dbmotorsportf1.blogspot.com, 17th February 2026: https://dbmotorsportf1.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-formula-1-manifesto-beyond-2026.html; D. Beatrice, "How F1's Pandemic Resilience Can Face the Actual Iran Crisis", dbmotorsportf1.blogspot.com, 5th March 2026: https://dbmotorsportf1.blogspot.com/2026/03/how-f1s-pandemic-resilience-can-face.html

[7]GPBlog, "Bahrain relocates entire Grand Prix to Malaysia and goes all out", September 2026.