Five 2015 Grands Prix listed with one-hour earlier start times than in 2014

The start times of five Grands Prix, including Australia, Malaysia and Japan, have been brought forward by one hour in the 2015 season.

In a document detailing session times for the 20-race season released by Formula One Management, the events in Australia, Malaysia, China, Japan and Russia all have their races listed with local start times one hour earlier than last year.

Over recent years races in Asia, along with the season-opener in Australia, have been scheduled to start in mid-late afternoon slots so to be more convenient for F1’s core European television audience.

However, change has been afoot since the Accident Panel looking into Jules Bianchi’s horrifying accident in last October’s rain-hit Japanese GP recommended that, excluding bespoke night races, “the start time of an event shall not be less than four hours before either sunset or dusk".

Malaysian GP chiefs indicated last week that they had discussed with Bernie Ecclestone the possibility of their race returning to a 3pm slot from 4pm, and that one-hour shift has duly been confirmed on the FOM list.

Indeed, the first three rounds will start an hour earlier than in 2014 with Australia moved forward to 4pm (5am GMT) from 5pm local time and China's event also moved, from 3pm to 2pm local.

September’s Japanese GP is also now listed to start at 2pm, as will the following race in Russia in a move previously announced by Sochi organisers last week. 

UK start times for the 2015 F1 season - every race live on Sky Sports F1

Australia: 5am
Malaysia: 8am
China: 7am
Bahrain: 4pm
Spain: 1pm
Monaco: 1pm
Canada: 7pm
Austria: 1pm
Great Britain: 1pm
Germany: 1pm
Hungary: 1pm
Belgium: 1pm
Italy: 1pm
Singapore: 1pm
Japan: 6am
Russia: 12pm
United States: 7pm
Mexico: 7pm
Brazil: 4pm
Abu Dhabi: 1pm

The Sky Sports F1 Online team will be providing live commentary of all three winter tests, starting in Jerez on February 1, with live updates from trackside also on Sky Sports News HQ.