Turkish GP dropped from calendar

The Turkish Grand Prix has been definitively axed from next year's 20-race Formula One calendar, the longest in the sport's history.

A failure to agree a new deal between F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and the race organisers means Turkey's seven-year stint is over.

The new calendar, confirmed by unanimous decision following a fax vote of the World Motor Sport Council members, sees Bahrain given a slot of April 22.

A provisional calendar that came to light at the end of July had Bahrain back-to-back with Middle Eastern neighbour Abu Dhabi late in the year.

Earlier this year the race in Bahrain became an off-on-off affair that was finally shelved due to political unrest in the country, and the deaths of a number of pro-democracy demonstrators.

It was believed that pairing it with Abu Dhabi would allow further time for peace to be restored to the Gulf kingdom.

However, it has now been decided the race will be the fourth in the calendar, and will be back-to-back with China.

The season will start in Australia on March 18, to be followed a week later by the Malaysian Grand Prix, and then a three-week gap to the China and Bahrain double-header.

As in the provisional calendar there will be a five-week summer break, with the tail end of the season seeing back-to-back races in Belgium/Italy, Japan/Korea, India/Abu Dhabi and concluding with the United States/Brazil on November 18 and 25.

The return of the US Grand Prix was initially pencilled in for June and was back-to-back with Canada, but due to concerns regarding the 40 degree heat at that time of year, it now becomes the penultimate race of the season.