Formula E is heading into its next chapter bigger than ever, and saying goodbye to one of its most familiar venues to get there. The championship and the FIA have unveiled a provisional 2026-27 calendar of 21 races across 13 cities, the largest schedule in the series' history and the first built around the new GEN4 car.
The headline change for British fans is the loss of the London E-Prix at the ExCeL exhibition centre, the indoor-outdoor circuit that has hosted the season finale in recent years. In its place, London's round moves to Brands Hatch, the historic Kent circuit staging a double-header on 29-30 May 2027, its first world championship event since the World Touring Car Championship visited in 2010.
The switch is a direct consequence of the GEN4 machine, a substantially faster and more powerful car with all-wheel drive and outputs beyond 800bhp. Formula E chief executive Jeff Dodds was blunt about why ExCeL had to go.
"You couldn't put the Gen4 car on that circuit," Dodds said. "It's tight through turns three and four."
Dodds framed the expansion as evidence of how far the series has come. "We've got over 400 million fans around the world now," he said. "The cars are capable of almost delivering on similar speed and performance to a Formula 1 car."
Brands Hatch is not the only new name. The Circuit of the Americas in Austin joins the calendar for the first time, with a race pencilled in for early February, and the Netherlands' Zandvoort circuit lands a June double-header. In all, eight venues will host two races across a weekend, Jeddah, Berlin, Monte Carlo, Brands Hatch, Zandvoort, Madrid, Shanghai and Tokyo, as the series leans further into permanent circuits capable of handling the GEN4 car's extra speed while keeping its city-centre identity.
Those double-headers also bring a format tweak. Day one will feature a new "E-Prix Unleashed" sprint, a 25-to-30-minute race with its own dedicated practice and qualifying, before a conventional E-Prix on day two, giving fans two distinct races rather than a repeat.
Alberto Longo, Formula E's co-founder and chief championship officer, cast the calendar as a statement of intent.
"We are incredibly proud to unveil our biggest and most ambitious calendar to date," Longo said. "Expanding to 21 races across 13 iconic cities is a huge milestone, and welcoming world-renowned tracks like COTA in Austin, Zandvoort, and Brands Hatch provides the ultimate stage to showcase our new GEN4 era."
The schedule remains provisional, pending the usual homologation and final promoter agreements, but the direction is clear: a longer season, faster cars, and a mix of street tracks and permanent circuits built to cope with them. For London, it means trading a purpose-built city venue for one of Britain's great old race tracks.
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