Azerbaijan GP All You Need to Know: The F1 circus visits Baku this week for the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix but there’s a significant change to the race weekend. The 2026 Azerbaijan GP is taking place on Saturday the 26th of September rather than the usual Sunday.
The Baku weekend is the 15 th round of the 2026 F1 season and is held at the 6.003km Baku City Circuit. The circuit is recognised for having a mixture of tight corners throughout the old city, as well as the longest flat-out section on the F1 calendar.
Why Is The Azerbaijan GP Taking Place on Saturday?
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been rescheduled to a day earlier to prevent its conflict with Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day on Sunday, September 27.
The FIA and Formula 1 announced in June 2025 that the race would be rescheduled to September 26 from September 27, after the Azerbaijan promoter and governmental stakeholders requested a change to host a national day.
Though this change doesn’t just involve the Grand Prix. The whole F1 weekend has been brought forward one day; that means practice will be on Thursday, qualifying on Friday, and the race on Saturday.
So, the 2026 Azerbaijan GP is going to be one of the odd Saturday Grand Prix of the 0ther than the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Azerbaijan GP 2026 Full Schedule and India Timings
Here is a look at the updated schedule and timings:
- Thursday, September 24: FP1 – 2:00 PM IST
- Thursday, September 24: FP2 – 5:30 PM IST
- Friday, September 25: FP3 – 2:00 PM IST
- Friday, September 25: Qualifying – 5:30 PM IST
- Saturday, September 26: Azerbaijan GP – 4:30 PM IST
The race in Baku (Grand Prix) is being scheduled to start at 1500 hours local in Baku, i. e 4:30 PM IST. The race is for 51 laps.
Azerbaijan GP 2026: Where To Watch in India?
Indian F1 fans can watch f1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend live on FanCode including practice, qualifying and race.
The race will be held at Baku City Circuit, which has a mix of long straights, significant braking regions, and constricted street sections that can make for highly variable racing. Max Verstappen took victory in the 2025 Azerbaijan GP, having scored points in every race that year, with Oscar Piastri suffering retirement on his first lap.
With the business end of the championship approaching, this sporadic Saturday race in Baku could have been another key chapter in the 2026 battle.
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Pragun is a passionate cricket follower and writer who deeply loves the game. Having completed his education with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has an experience of almost two years in diverse fields. He is known for his statistical and analytical articles. Pragun tries to bring life to his articles by adding a layer of enthusiasm from the perspective of a hardcore fan. Apart from writing cricket articles, he sometimes appears on YouTube videos on a friend’s podcast.
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