F1 confirms return to Istanbul in place of cancelled Singapore GP

Formula 1 will return to Istanbul Park in Turkey for the 16th round of the world championship in October, the championship as announced.

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The Turkish Grand Prix will take the place of Singapore’s round of the world championship on the 2021 F1 calendar. The Singapore street race was cancelled three weeks ago, for the second year running.

The race will take place on October 3rd, six weeks earlier than the series’ visit to the track last season.

A race in Turkey was previously announced in place of the cancelled Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month. However that was called off when the British government added the country to its “red list”, requiring anyone who returns from there to quarantine for 10 days.

F1 expects it will be able to fully comply with the travel restrictions which are likely to be in place in just over three months’ time. Discussions have been held over accommodating the onward travel of teams’ staff to the next round of the world championship in Japan, which will be held the following week.

Formula 1’s president and CEO Stefano Domenicali said: “We hope to see another fantastic race again in one of the best tracks in the world.

“We want to thank the Intercity Istanbul Park management and Mr Vural Ak for his personal efforts to make this event to happen. We have shown that we can continue to adapt and there is huge interest in our sport and the hope from many locations to have a grand prix. We have had very good conversations with all the other promoters since the start of the year and continue to work closely with them during this period.”

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Updated 2021 F1 calendar

Round	Race	Circuit	Date
1	Bahrain Grand Prix	Bahrain International Circuit	Mar 26-28
2	Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix	Imola	Apr 16-18
3	Portuguese Grand Prix	Autodromo do Algarve	Apr 30-May 2
4	Spanish Grand Prix	Circuit de Catalunya	May 7-9
5	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	May 20-23
6	Azerbaijan Grand Prix	Baku City Circuit	Jun 4-6
7	French Grand Prix	Paul Ricard	Jun 18-20
8	Styrian Grand Prix	Red Bull Ring	Jun 25-27
9	Austrian Grand Prix	Red Bull Ring	Jul 2-4
10	British Grand Prix	Silverstone	Jul 16-18
11	Hungarian Grand Prix	Hungaroring	Jul 30-Aug 1
12	Belgian Grand Prix	Spa-Francorchamps	Aug 27-29
13	Dutch Grand Prix	Zandvoort	Sep 3-5
14	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Sep 10-12
15	Russian Grand Prix	Sochi Autodrom	Sep 24-26
16	Turkish Grand Prix	Istanbul Park	Oct 1-3
17	Japanese Grand Prix	Suzuka	Oct 8-10
18	United States Grand Prix	Circuit of the Americas	Oct 22-24
19	Mexico City Grand Prix	Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez	Oct 29-31
20	Sao Paulo Grand Prix	Interlagos	Nov 5-7
21	Australian Grand Prix	Albert Park	Nov 19-21
22	Saudi Arabian Grand Prix	Jeddah Street Circuit	Dec 3-5
23	Abu Dhabi Grand Prix	Yas Marina	Dec 10-12

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2021 F1 season

Browse all 2021 F1 season articles

15 comments on “F1 confirms return to Istanbul in place of cancelled Singapore GP”

MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
25th June 2021, 10:07

Meanwhile at Codemasters
1. Dave
  26th June 2021, 11:24
  
  They haven’t changedd Melbourne either in the preview build that F1 YouTubers played.
Jere (@jerejj)
25th June 2021, 10:09

Except the Japanese GP will likely face cancellation for severe entry restrictions like last year (MotoGP’s Motegi event cancellation effectively confirmed this), so the weekend after will eventually become empty, meaning the red list thing would be an issue again.
1. Chaitanya
  25th June 2021, 10:36
  
  Brazillian GP might also get axed along with Japanese GP. Not sure about what situation in Mexico is like right now(had few friends go there for herping recently and havent heard back from them since they returned).
  1. Jere (@jerejj)
    25th June 2021, 11:37
    
    @Chaitanya Brazil will definitely get axed. So will, with all likelihood Australia for the same reason as Japan.
    1. Tom
      25th June 2021, 12:24
      
      +1 there’s no way at all that Australia,Japan or Brazil go ahead. As others have said Mexico is maybe a 50/50. Depending on how the Delta variant impacts other countries I wouldn’t rule out more races being cancelled too. In the uk cases have gone up to over 10k per day from 1-2k per day in only a week and that’s with impressive vaccine numbers.
      1. Simon
        25th June 2021, 18:17
        
        No way Mexico will happen this year. Same for Brazil and Australia
Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
25th June 2021, 10:11

Now to hope the owners ensure we don’t get a repeat of the farce of last year with the terrible grip levels
1. BasCB (@bascb)
  25th June 2021, 11:01
  
  Well, I doubt they will resurface the track again this summer @barryfromdownunder! Surely a year having passed, and more support races, will help improve that tarmac. Also, it could be dry.
  1. RandomMallard (@)
    25th June 2021, 11:30
    
    Aaahhh reply not report sorry
    
    @bascb Istanbul Park hosts very few races nowadays and is pretty much abandoned before F1 returned last year, so the grip probably won’t have improved too much.
    1. BasCB (@bascb)
      25th June 2021, 11:40
      
      I think there will be some change from the winter rains, a bit of a dry spell over the summer etc, that will get a lot of the oily stuff out already.
      
      And it seems F1 might actually have a few support races to help clean up the track this year.
      
      So it will definitely be somewhat better. But I doubt the track saw more than a few cars in the interim period since last race, yeah. Not just there is little racing there in a normal year, but the whole epidemic surely hasn’t helped getting cars racing on tracks either!
2. melanos
  25th June 2021, 16:30
  
  Last year Istanbul was being truly enjoyable, until it (mostly) dried up at it was all previsible and boring again
Robert
25th June 2021, 11:20

One of the best racing tracks!
1. Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
  26th June 2021, 0:19
  
  I’d rather have Singapore, very long race but at some point something always happens there.
Kribana (@krichelle)
25th June 2021, 11:41

Wohoooo TURN 8 monster speed about time!!!