Ben Sulayem Floats Turkey as Potential 2026 F1 Calendar Fill-In
FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem has raised the possibility of Turkey returning to the Formula 1 calendar this year, telling reporters that Istanbul could serve as a contingency venue if either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia cannot adjust their Grand Prix dates to accommodate changes at the end of the 2026 season.
The remarks, made on 7 May 2026 and carried by the official Formula 1 Telegram channel, represent the most concrete official signal yet that the sport's governing body is actively exploring fallback options for its Gulf-based Middle Eastern rounds. "If not, then maybe we could have Turkey this year," Ben Sulayem said, according to the verbatim post.
Turkey last appeared on the F1 calendar in 2021, filling a slot originally intended for the cancelled Singapore Grand Prix during the pandemic-era schedule restructuring. The Istanbul Park circuit, designed by Hermann Tilke and featuring a 5.338-kilometre layout with the distinctive fourth-gear Turn 8 carousel, has a complicated relationship with the sport. It hosted races continuously from 2005 to 2011 under a deal negotiated during Turkey's economic expansion, was dropped amid declining attendance and TV viewership, and returned briefly in 2020 and 2021 as pandemic logistics forced Liberty Media to reconsider venue options across the calendar.
The Gulf Circuit Problem
The statement from Ben Sulayem points to a specific structural tension in Formula 1's current calendar architecture: the cluster of consecutive Middle Eastern events that now anchor the beginning and end of the season. The 2026 schedule places Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the early-season swing, while Qatar and Abu Dhabi close the year. Each venue operates under multi-year agreements with specific commercial terms and government commitments tied to date windows.
Ben Sulayem, who as FIA President serves as the sport's regulatory overseer while Liberty Media controls commercial rights, appears to be flagging that date flexibility within those existing Gulf agreements may be reaching its limit. The alternative—inserting Turkey into a gap—would require emergency calendar restructuring rather than a planned replacement slot.
The sources do not specify what specific scheduling conflict with Bahrain or Saudi Arabia prompted the contingency discussion, nor do they indicate which of the two circuits faces the more pressing issue. Liberty Media and the individual circuit promoters have not commented on the record.
What Turkey Brings to the Table
From a purely operational standpoint, Istanbul Park has advantages as an emergency replacement. The circuit holds a Grade 1 licence from the FIA, meaning it requires no homologation work to host a Formula 1 race. The venue has hosted F1, MotoGP, and World Endurance Championship events, and its infrastructure—including paddock facilities, hospitality suites, and pit buildings—remains in place from its most recent race in 2021.
The Turkish motorsport federation has maintained the facility to a standard that would allow relatively rapid reactivation. Whether that reactivation could happen mid-season is a separate question: hosting a Grand Prix requires years of lead time for logistics, homologation of support races, and coordination with broadcasters and sponsors.
The commercial calculus is less straightforward. Turkish Grand Prix promoters historically struggled to meet the revenue guarantees that F1's commercial rights holder demanded, contributing to the original 2012 exit. Whether those economics have shifted enough to make a 2026 fill-in commercially viable remains unclear from publicly available information.
The Structural Problem Behind the Headline
The Ben Sulayem statement, brief as it is, illuminates a tension that has been building since Liberty Media restructured F1's calendar around Gulf venues. The Middle Eastern bloc—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Abu Dhabi—now represents a critical revenue and strategic anchor for the sport. Those four races, backed by state investment and designed to be photogenic and commercially lucrative, have effectively created a calendar-within-a-calendar.
That concentration creates fragility. When one link in the Gulf chain has scheduling trouble, the absence is harder to absorb because the other circuits are also booked into their windows. A circuit like Turkey, which sits just outside that bloc geographically and culturally but has F1 infrastructure, becomes a natural pressure valve.
The alternative framing is that the sport's dependence on Gulf state backing—through infrastructure subsidies, broadcast rights negotiations, and sponsor relationships—now constrains calendar flexibility in ways that would have been unthinkable under Bernie Ecclestone's more transactional model. Whether that dependency is a problem depends on whether you think F1's current financial health requires those relationships.
What Remains Unclear
The sources do not specify which Gulf circuit faces the scheduling conflict, what the nature of that conflict is, or whether any formal discussions with Turkish authorities have taken place. Ben Sulayem's phrasing—"could return" and "maybe"—suggests this remains exploratory rather than a planned contingency. There is no indication in the sourced material that Liberty Media has approached the Istanbul promoter or that Turkish motorsport officials have been briefed on the scenario.
The broader question of whether F1's 2026 calendar requires a 24th race or whether the current 23-event structure remains intact also goes unaddressed in the available sourcing. Liberty Media has signalled a desire to cap the calendar at a manageable number of events to protect the "premium" positioning of the championship.
The outcome of this contingency planning will depend on negotiations between the FIA, Liberty Media, and the Gulf circuit operators that are not visible from the outside. What is visible is that the governing body's president is actively discussing alternatives publicly—which suggests the scheduling issue is real, if not yet resolved.
This publication covered the Ben Sulayem statement as a calendar contingency signal rather than as an established replacement race. The Telegram source contained the full quote and timestamp; no additional wire outlets had published direct coverage of the remarks as of the time of this report.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://t.me/formula1/102352