Bianchi crash means earlier races for 2015 F1 calendar

F1 Results
20 January 2015 by    1 min read

Five hosts on this year's 20-race F1 calendar will see their respective grands prix start earlier than usual in 2015.

After Jules Bianchi's horror crash at Suzuka in fading light late last season, the FIA vowed to look into ensuring races are no longer started too close to dusk.

The trend outside of Europe in recent years has been for later race starts, to create better television viewing times for the sport's bulk European audience.

But it emerged last week that Melbourne, whose season opener at Albert Park usually starts at 5pm, had received a request to reverse the scheduled start time by several hours.

It also emerged that Malaysia and Russia would similarly have earlier race start times this year.

Now, in a document released by the Bernie Ecclestone-run Formula One Management, it has been confirmed that five races - Australia, Malaysia, Russia and also China and Japan - will all see their grands prix start one hour earlier than in 2014.

See 2015 F1 calendar.

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