It marks a busy start to what will is poised to be a record-breaking 24-race calendar that runs through to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December.

With so many races on the schedule, squeezing them in is far from easy and has forced the sport to divert from the traditional Sunday grand prix.

Last year, the Las Vegas Grand Prix marked the first time F1 had raced on a Saturday since the 1985 South African Grand Prix.

It was a move designed to capture a greater global television audience, given the local time zone – Vegas is eight hours behind the United Kingdom, meaning the 22:00 race start time translated to 06:00 Sunday morning in the UK and 07:00 in Europe.

Had that event been held on Sunday instead, much of Europe would have had to tune in early on Monday morning.

But while the quest for a greater television audience saw Las Vegas shift to a Saturday night race, both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have moved forward a day for more pragmatic reasons.

Formula 1 has squeezed both events in ahead of Ramadan, which begins on March 10.

Under Saudi Arabian law, there are penalties for eating, drinking, or smoking during daylight hours during Ramadan.

To avoid clashing with the Islamic holy month, F1 has shifted the schedule for the Jeddah event forward a day.

As the event is back-to-back with Bahrain, to allow teams time to travel from the opening round to Saudi Arabia, it too has had its schedule moved forward a day.

That will see the opening race of the season begin under lights at 18:00 local time on Saturday, March 2 (which translates to 02:00 AEDT on Sunday) ahead of Round 2 a week later, on March 9.

There are a total of three Saturday races in 2024, with Las Vegas set to remain a Saturday night event, starting at 22:00 local time when the championship reaches the City of Sin in November.