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F1's 2016 season to begin in April, Australian GP reveals

Next season to start a fortnight later to "condense" the calendar; F1's last April start was 1988; No other 2016 details yet revealed

Felipe Nasr on his way to fifth

The 2016 F1 season will break with recent tradition and begin in April instead of March.

In an unexpected announcement, the Australian GP revealed that while they will again host next year’s season-opener the Melbourne race will take place on April 3 – two weeks later than normal.

Organisers say the sport’s decision to push their event back has been taken to “condense the season”, which will again finish in November. The last time an F1 season began as late as April was 1988, with the first race of the year generally having been held in March since the start of the 1980s.

The change in date for Australia also means that the race will start earlier on the Sunday with daytime saving time ending in the south of the country on April 3. This year's race was already moved forward by an hour to 4pm local time (5am GMT).

With the announcement coming from the race itself rather than FOM or the FIA, no further details on the 2016 calendar have been released with provisional lists not normally circulated until late summer.

Having previously secured the honour of opening the F1 season for the duration of their latest five-year contract until 2020, Albert Park chiefs are happy with the arrangements for 2016.

The season last started in April in 1988, when Rio staged the Brazilian GP
Image: The season last started in April in 1988, when Rio staged the Brazilian GP

"It's fantastic that Melbourne will again play host to the opening round of the FIA Formula One World Championship. Over the past 20 years Melbourne has become synonymous with the start of a new Formula One season, and we look forward to again welcoming all the teams and drivers to our great city in 2016," Australian GP Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott said.

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"The new date will see an earlier start time, and fans can expect the same great on-track action and off-track entertainment across the four days."

The composition of the 2015 calendar has been criticised by people inside the sport for both the scheduling of the early flyaway races and for some of the long gaps between events.

For the second successive year, the Australian and Malaysian GPs were not run back-to-back, meaning personnel had to travel back to Europe after each of the opening two rounds before flying back to the Far East again for the Chinese GP. Meanwhile, the last race in Bahrain and next round in Spain are scheduled three weeks apart.

Although initially set to be a record-equalling 20-race schedule, the demise of the German GP from its mid-July slot now means that at the height of the summer there is just one grand prix (Hungary) in the seven-week period between the British GP on July 5 and the Belgian GP on August 23. The three weeks before the Spa event represent F1’s now traditional summer break.

However, nine events then take place in the final 15 weeks of the season up to the Abu Dhabi finale on November 29.

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The decision to “condense” the season could also be designed to increase the number of races. Azerbaijan is already scheduled to join the calendar under the banner of the European GP at a street track in Baku, while Germany’s Hockenheim may return having decided against stepping in to fill the void left by the financially-stricken Nurburgring and stage the event in successive years.

With F1’s powerbrokers already debating discussing ways to improve the sport’s reach, debate is already raging over what time of day grands prix should be staged.

Meanwhile, the decision to push back the start of the 2016 campaign means there will be even less F1 track action in the first three months of next year with the pre-season schedule already set to be cut from three to two winter tests.

Watch every twist and turn of the Spanish GP weekend live only on Sky Sports F1. The race begins at 1pm on Sunday May 10, with our build-up underway from 11.30am.
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