Grand Opening Of Season

The opening ceremony of the new season will be held in Melbourne at Federation square. For fans, the entrance to the square will be free.

According to the commercial director of the Royal Races Sean Bratches, there is no better place for such an event than Melbourne as the audience there is incredible. Australian fans are super enthusiastic and just crazy about everything related to the race. The F1 will bring live music concerts to the social broadcast platform in the city. Renowned drives from previous seasons will visit the championship as well.

Extension of Formula 1 World Championship Calendar

In 2019, the race calendar still includes 21 Grand Prix, but the championship will last 259 days and will end on December 1 which is much longer than last year.

An extra week between races is needed for promoters at the start of the championship to celebrate the 1000th Grand Prix in China which will start on April 14. It also takes more time between a series of summer stages that closely follow each other. In the new season, 5 stages will be stretched over 7 weeks.

Four Festivals In Three Countries

The upcoming season will include several festivals that are highly anticipated by Formula 1 fans around the world.

The first festivals will take place in April ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix. Some celebration events will be held in Shanghai. The next two festivals are scheduled in the United States: before the Canadian Grand Prix in Chicago and in Los Angeles (ahead of the October stage in Austin). The last festival will be held in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the race in Brazil.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will stage two four-day pre-season tests (from February 18 to 21 and February 26 to March 1). The first race of the season is scheduled on March 17 in Australia.

Major Changes in Crews

Over the last few years, there have been many big changes in the racing teams which is why by 2018 they have been modified by 60%.

This year, only 8 drivers have not been replaced. For comparison, a year earlier there were 18 of them on the list. A 100% upgrade took place in the teams of McLaren, Sauber, Toro Rosso, and Williams. Ferrari, Red Bull, Renault, and Racing Point kept 50% of their drivers. Only Mercedes and Haas did not replace any driver.

Enhanced Car Aerodynamics

The last changes in the configuration of the cars, carried out in 2009 and 2017, were made to tackle the issue of the swirl throttle when overtaking the car in front. The improvements in the aerodynamics regulations are supposed to increase the efficiency of the racing cars by 25-30%.

Anyway, how successful was this experiment will remain to be seen. For what it is worth, it is expected to determine the tendency of global changes in the regulations ahead of the 2021 season.

New Names And Tyre Markings

Instead of Superhard, Hypersoft, Ultrasoft, and Supersoft, only 3 names of tires - Hard (white rims), Medium (yellow), and Soft (red) will be used in the F1's championship.

However, this does not mean that the total number of types of rubber stiffness in the F1 is reduced to three. In fact, it is not so important as at the Grand Prix the drivers and teams are allowed to use only hard, medium and soft rubber compositions.