Our beloved pinnacle of motorsport has been around since 1950. In those 76 years, Formula 1 has blessed its fans with 1,159 Grands Prix in total. And - believe it or not - we have actually seen races on every day of the week. Let's go through all seven days from most common to unique.
We begin with the most obvious day of the week. 1,081 Grands Prix have been held on a Sunday so far, equalling to 93.27 % of all races. The most recent one of those obviously came last Sunday in Spa, even though George Russell didn't see much of it on track. The first Sunday race was 1950's edition of the Monaco GP, won by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio who was able to lap the entire field. By the way, qualifying used to be partly run on Sunday in early 2005, however it was quickly scrapped due to its unpopularity with teams and viewers. When the weather gods forced the organisers, the Sunday shoot-out session made a handful of comebacks though, most recently at the typhoon-affected 2019 Japanese GP and in Interlagos 2024.
While Saturday is usually reserved for aforementioned hunt for pole position (and more recently sprints), there have also been 62 races on Saturdays, so about one in twenty Grands Prix in F1 history. Traditionally, the British GP - including the first-ever Formula 1 race in 1950 - had been held on a Saturday, the first Sunday race took place as recently as in 1976:
A National innovation this year was the holding of the race on Sunday, instead of the traditional Saturday, and in consequence practice was held on Friday and Saturday.
Similarly, the South African GPs were also mostly contested on Saturdays. Nigel Mansell's win at Kyalami in 1985 eventually became F1's last Saturday race for 38 years. In 2023, the organisers of the re-introduced Las Vegas race had to get creative with the start time. They obviously wanted to capture the city's buzzing vibes at night time, however starting on Sunday evening would have ruled out many European viewers. Instead, everything was moved 24 hours earlier. In 2024, we even had three Saturday Grands Prix thanks to the preponement of the Sakhir and Jeddah races due to the beginning of Ramadan.
Okay, let's get even more obscure now. Of the remaining 16 races, nine have taken place on a Monday. Three of those occurrences were at the Dutch Grands Prix of 1958, 1960 and 1961 which coincided with the respective Pentecost weekends, so that the race was held on the public holiday that is Whit Monday. The organisers wanted to attract as many spectators and beach-vacationists as possible to cover their costs. Elsewhere, Formula 1 wanted to make use of summer time in the Southern Hemisphere and scheduled the first editions of the South African GP for right after Christmas. This resulted in two very unusual Monday races, namely on 2 January 1967 and New Year's Day in 1968. The most recent Monday motor race followed at the 1972 Spanish GP, held on May Day, once again "to coincide with a national holiday, in the hope of attracting larger crowds".
Usually reserved for free practice, three F1 races have been held on a Friday. One of those was yet another South African Grand Prix, this time the race in 1965. Originally, the event in East London was scheduled for 26 December as the last race of the 1964 season, however it was moved forward by a week and took place on 1 January instead, thus becoming the 1965 season opener. The Grand Prix was won by none other than Jim Clark who remains the only driver to win on four different days of the week. The other two Friday fixtures were two runnings of the Indianapolis 500 which was part of the World Drivers' Championship from 1950 to 1960. Up until 1970, the Indy 500 was held on Memorial Day (back then still known as Decoration Day) itself, which was celebrated on its fixed 30 May date until 1971. In 1952 and 1958, the 30 May happened to be a Friday. By the way, the race would take place on 31 May instead if Decoration Day fell on a Sunday.
This Indianapolis tradition is also the slightly underwhelming reason for two World Championship races on a Wednesday (1951 and 1956) as well as the only races on a Tuesday in 1950 and a Thursday in 1957. Curiously, the three first races in Formula 1 history were therefore all held on different days of the week: Silverstone on a Saturday, Monaco on a Sunday and the Indy 500 on a Tuesday.
The Indy era also makes 30 May the date with the most races, however only five of fifteen were not held on the Speedway. Otherwise, the record is held by 16 July with eleven races: nine of those took part in Great Britain plus the 2000 Austrian and 2006 French Grands Prix. Also, while there obviously are many dates between November and February with no races ever, there is one outlier: Somehow, there has never been a Formula 1 race on 20 August.
