What do F1 drivers do during enforced spring break?

An edited photo of Andrea Stella looking serious and Toto Wolff grinning on a background of a McLaren in the pits — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Explained

What do F1 drivers do during enforced spring break?

There is a five-week gap between the Japanese and Miami Grands Prix

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Wednesday 8 April 2026 14:57

F1 may be on an five-week break due to the race cancellations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but here's why some teams are welcoming it.

The 2026 F1 calendar once again saw a jam-packed, but often gruelling, 24-race schedule for the teams and drivers, who this April would have been busy trackside at the Bahrain International Circuit and Jeddah.

However, due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, the two races, originally slated to take place April 10-12 and April 17-19, were cancelled with no alternative circuits slotted in as a replacement.

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That means F1 will next go racing the weekend of May 1-3, for the 2026 Miami Grand Prix. But, what will F1 teams get up between then?

While we all know that drivers such as Lance Stroll and Max Verstappen are tackling GT, teams will be hard work back at their respective factories.

How F1 teams will spend the spring break

Thanks to the dawn of the new regulations, the 2026 season has been relentless, even before it started. With a Barcelona shakedown and two Bahrain tests for the all new cars, teams were working flat out before the first race in Melbourne.

Now the enforced pause gives teams and their personnel a chance to breathe, at least from the high pressure environment trackside, and use this time to catch up from a technical viewpoint.

The Miami Grand Prix has been tipped to be one of F1's biggest re-starts with any car development for the Bahrain and Saudi Grands Prix being fine-tuned, alongside any further developments for Miami also.

But wait...isn't there usually a shutdown for the winter and summer break?

Well, yes! There is. But this isn't summer, and it certainly isn't winter (welcome to the chat BST). During these two periods F1 teams are required by the regulations to shut down their operations.

But throughout the break in April, teams are perfectly free to work on the car with the race cancellations having no impact on the regulations in this regard.

And for most teams this is incredibly good news, especially if you're car is overweight (no shame here).

A new championship will start

Williams have had to contend with a slow and overweight car in the first three rounds, and speaking ahead of the enforced break team principal James Vowles said: "Every single hour of that break we need in order to get ourselves back on the front foot by time we come back to Miami.

"That period for us is about taking stock of what we actually really can change. Without attrition [from grands prix], we can counter the fact production can be pushed to future performance. Some of that may come in Miami, some of that may come after that

"There is never enough time after the event to go through every single tiny bit of data and understand really what we should have done in hindsight and what programmes we want to kick off in the future. This provides us a good time to do that."

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