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Why is the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday? Because 27 September is Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan, a national day of mourning, so Formula 1 pulled the entire Baku weekend forward by 24 hours. Practice runs on Thursday, qualifying on Friday afternoon, and the 51-lap race starts at 15:00 local time on Saturday 26 September. That is 12:00 in the UK, 07:00 ET, 04:00 PT and 21:00 on a Saturday night in Sydney.
The short version
The 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs on Saturday 26 September at 15:00 Baku time, not Sunday. Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day falls on 27 September, so Formula 1 moved every session forward a day. Practice is on Thursday, qualifying is Friday at 16:00 local, and the race starts at 12:00 in the UK, 07:00 ET, 04:00 PT and 21:00 AEST.
Why is the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday?
27 September is Anim Gunu, Remembrance Day, the date Azerbaijan marks the start of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and honours the soldiers who died in it. At midday the country stops for a nationwide minute of silence: state flags come down, traffic halts, drivers lean on their horns. A Grand Prix would have started three hours after that, with an anthem and champagne on the podium. It was never going to work, and the promoter said so.
Formula 1 first published the 2026 calendar with Baku on Sunday 27 September. The fix came in June 2025. Motorsport.com reported that F1’s statement credited “a request from the Azerbaijan promoter and relevant government stakeholders”, and that rather than find a new date, the sport slid the whole weekend back one day. Media day landed on Wednesday, FP1 and FP2 on Thursday, FP3 and qualifying on Friday, and the Grand Prix on Saturday.
Rare, but not unheard of. Las Vegas has raced on Saturday night since 2023, and the 2024 Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds shifted to Saturday around Ramadan. By Motorsport.com’s count, Baku is only the fifth non-Sunday Grand Prix since 1985.
2026 Azerbaijan GP practice and qualifying times, converted
Baku sits on UTC+4 and never changes clocks. In late September the US is still on daylight time, the UK is still on BST, and eastern Australia has not switched yet, so the offsets below hold all weekend. The times come from the official Formula 1 timetable and the Baku promoter’s published schedule, which match each other exactly. Both were checked on 16 September 2026.
| Session | Baku (UTC+4) | UK (BST) | US Eastern | US Pacific | Australia (AEST) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 1 (Thu 24 Sep) | 12:30 | 09:30 Thu | 04:30 Thu | 01:30 Thu | 18:30 Thu |
| Practice 2 (Thu 24 Sep) | 16:00 | 13:00 Thu | 08:00 Thu | 05:00 Thu | 22:00 Thu |
| Practice 3 (Fri 25 Sep) | 12:30 | 09:30 Fri | 04:30 Fri | 01:30 Fri | 18:30 Fri |
| Qualifying (Fri 25 Sep) | 16:00 | 13:00 Fri | 08:00 Fri | 05:00 Fri | 22:00 Fri |
| Grand Prix, 51 laps (Sat 26 Sep) | 15:00 | 12:00 Sat | 07:00 Sat | 04:00 Sat | 21:00 Sat |
Two details most schedule pages leave out. FP1 ends at 13:30 on Thursday and FP2 does not go green until 16:00, a two and a half hour wait, because Formula 2 qualifying and the team principals’ press conference sit in the middle of it. And on Saturday the running order gives the national anthem a two-minute slot from 14:44 to 14:46, then seven minutes of grid entertainment, then lights out at 15:00. Podium is pencilled in for 17:00.
How to watch the Baku Grand Prix 2026
Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2026 start time in the US
Lights out is 07:00 ET and 04:00 PT on Saturday 26 September. Formula 1 is exclusive to Apple TV in the United States this season, and an Apple TV subscription includes F1 TV Premium at no extra cost, with the F1 TV world feed and the Sky Sports commentary sitting side by side in one app. Apple’s how-to-watch page lists every driver’s onboard, the data feed, the driver tracker and up to four simultaneous streams on Apple TV 4K, iPad and Vision Pro. Apple also says every practice session is free without a subscription, plus a selected number of full race weekends, so Thursday costs you nothing.
The West Coast draws the short straw again. FP1 and FP3 both go green at 01:30 PT.
What time is the Baku F1 race in the UK
Midday, which is as civilised as a fly-away race gets. Sky Sports lists the race at 12:00 on Saturday 26 September with build-up from 10:30, and carries all five sessions live on Sky Sports F1, streamed through Sky Go and Now. Channel 4 keeps its free-to-air highlights of every round under the deal it extended with Sky. The awkward one is qualifying: 13:00 on a Friday, right in the middle of the working day.
Watching from Australia
Baku normally costs Australians a Sunday night. This time the race starts at 21:00 AEST on Saturday, so you get the whole thing and still keep your Sunday. Fox Sports and Kayo carry it live. Qualifying is 22:00 AEST Friday; FP3 at 18:30 is the only session before dinner.
What a Thursday start changes at the track
If you have tickets, the calendar you booked around has probably shifted under you. The promoter’s schedule puts the pit lane walk on Wednesday 23 September from 16:00 to 17:30, a full day before any Formula 1 car turns a wheel, and the Crystal Hall concerts on the Thursday and Friday nights at 20:00, both of them before the race rather than after it.
Formula 2 has squeezed a full programme into the same window: practice at 10:00 Thursday, two qualifying groups that afternoon, a sprint at 08:15 on Friday morning, then feature races at 14:15 Friday and 11:00 Saturday. If you are at the circuit, Friday starts early.
For the teams the compression is mostly a logistics win: freight leaves Baku a day sooner, which buys back a day of turnaround. The cost is that a bad Thursday has to be fixed with one fewer sleep than usual.
Why Baku is the hardest energy test on the 2026 calendar
The Baku City Circuit is 6.003 km of closed public road with 20 corners, and the run along the Neftchilar Avenue seafront to Turn 1 is 2.2 km, the longest flat-out stretch on the calendar. Call it 15 seconds at wide open throttle. Under the old rules that was a free overtaking gift. Now it is a maths problem.
The MGU-K can now push 350 kW, but standard deployment starts tapering above 290 km/h and falls to zero by 355 km/h, so a driver who spends the battery early can arrive at the end of Neftchilar with nothing left and watch the car behind sail past. We covered how 2026 deployment maps work on long straights in more detail, and the same applies here with the volume turned up. Manual Override Mode, the DRS replacement, gives a chasing car within one second an extra 0.5 MJ at the full 350 kW up to 337 km/h inside the FIA’s designated zones, and how override actually behaves in traffic matters more at Baku than anywhere else.
Charles Leclerc’s 1:43.009 from 2019 is still the official lap record, and nothing in the 2026 rulebook suggests it falls this weekend. Max Verstappen won here in 2025 with a grand slam: pole, fastest lap, every lap led, and 14 seconds over George Russell.
Baku is round 15 of 23. Kimi Antonelli arrives 81 points clear of Russell after winning at Madrid on 13 September, 292 points to 211, with Lewis Hamilton third on 191 and Lando Norris fourth on 186. Mercedes lead the constructors’ table on 503 from Ferrari’s 358. Nine rounds remain including this one, which is still enough for a swing, though barely. The numbers on Antonelli’s title run get harder to argue with every weekend.
FAQ
Is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday or Sunday in 2026?
Saturday. The 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix starts at 15:00 local time on Saturday 26 September at the Baku City Circuit. Some listings still show Sunday 27 September because that was the original calendar date, but Formula 1 moved the event forward a day in June 2025 to avoid Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day. The official Formula 1 timetable and the Baku promoter both show Saturday.
Is there a sprint race at Baku in 2026?
No. Azerbaijan runs the conventional format of three practice sessions and a single qualifying hour, just compressed into Thursday and Friday. The only sprint at Baku belongs to Formula 2, which races at 08:15 on Friday morning. F1 sprint weekends in 2026 are held elsewhere on the calendar.
Can I watch the Baku Grand Prix for free?
Partly. In the US, Apple TV makes every practice session free without a subscription and opens up a selected number of full race weekends, so Thursday’s FP1 and FP2 are free regardless. In the UK, live coverage is behind Sky Sports F1, but Channel 4 shows free-to-air race highlights. In Australia, the live feed is on Fox Sports and Kayo.
How many laps is the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix?
Fifty-one laps of the 6.003 km Baku City Circuit, a race distance of 306.049 km. Formula 1 lists the scheduled window as 15:00 to 17:00 local time, and the two-hour race limit applies as normal. The lap record stands at 1:43.009, set by Charles Leclerc in 2019.
Does Baku change time zones for daylight saving before the race?
No. Azerbaijan dropped daylight saving in 2016 and stays on UTC+4 all year, so the offsets above hold. The UK is on BST until 25 October, the US stays on daylight time until 1 November, and eastern Australia switches to daylight time on 4 October, after the race. Nothing shifts between now and Saturday.
About this article: session times were checked on 16 September 2026 against the official Formula 1 timetable and the Baku promoter’s schedule at azerbaijanf1.com, which agree line for line. The Saturday date and the reason for it were confirmed against Motorsport.com’s report of F1’s statement, and UK times against Sky Sports’ Azerbaijan listing. Points are the standings after Madrid on 13 September 2026.
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