Formula 1 heads to the United States for round 18 in Austin

Formula 1's next stop is the United States. The United States Grand Prix, round 18 of the 2026 season, will be held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, the capital of the state of Texas. Six races remain on the calendar after this one.

Weekend schedule

Drivers will begin track running on Friday, 23 October at 20:30 Turkish time, when the first practice session also takes place. Qualifying will be held on Sunday, 25 October at 00:00, which means it will run overnight, across the change from Saturday to Sunday. The race will start on Sunday, 25 October at 23:00 Turkish time.

Championship standings

Andrea Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers' championship with 340 points. The Italian is followed by George Russell on 238 points. Lewis Hamilton is third on 229, while Max Verstappen is fourth on 221 and Charles Leclerc fifth on 215.

Antonelli holds a 102-point lead over Russell. The gap between Russell, Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc is just 23 points, so the race in Austin matters for the places of all four drivers.

Circuit of the Americas is one of the calendar's stops in the Americas. Of the six races left this season, the Austin weekend is one of the first where the standings could be reshuffled. The source did not provide detailed technical information about the track or any weather data.

All sessions of the weekend fall late at night in Turkey, so viewers there will need to plan their schedule accordingly.