F1/WEC Cancel Middle East Races Amid Uncertainty

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - FEBRUARY 20: Valtteri Bottas of Finland driving the (77) Cadillac F1 Team Ferrari and Oliver Bearman of Great Britain driving the (87) Haas F1 VF-26 Ferrari in the queue to leave the pitlane during day three of F1 Testing at Bahrain International Circuit on February 20, 2026 in Bahrain, Bahrain. (Photo by Mark Sutton - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

UPDATE (Saturday, March 14 -- 6:34pm/et) The FIA have made it official, Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds of all championships run with and including Formula 1 have been cancelled due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The next race following Japan will be the Miami GP in May.

With the current geopolitical situation taking place in the Middle East, two premier global championships have announced that they have cancelled their upcoming races in the region.

The World Endurance Championship was set to host the Qatar 1812km as their opening round of the 2026 championship, however two weeks ago they pulled the plug and announced Imola would be the new opening round on April 19th. Qatar has been moved to October 24th, just two weeks before their final race of the season in Bahrain.

That left Formula 1 to sort out what they would do for for their rounds of the World Championship at Bahrain and Jeddah, which still ran during a Houthi attack that struck a nearby Saudi Aramco facility before Friday practice.

According to multiple sources, the two races are set to be cancelled from the calendar this weekend during the Chinese Grand Prix, with Sky Sports the only source confirming the cancellation at time of publishing. Sky is the official F1 English language distributor for multiple countries, including the United States as a feed option on Apple TV and Canada to TSN.