Nine Rounds as Silverstone Returns

The FIA World Endurance Championship will grow to nine rounds in 2027, its biggest calendar in a decade, with Silverstone rejoining the schedule after an eight-year absence.

Endurance racing’s world championship is expanding. The 2027 FIA WEC calendar, published on Friday of Le Mans week and rubber-stamped by the FIA World Motor Sport Council, adds a ninth round for the first time since 2017, and the headline act is a homecoming.

Silverstone, a fixture of the championship’s early years and a sportscar venue of genuine pedigree, returns to the schedule in late April as round three.

It is a calendar built on familiar foundations. All eight existing venues have been retained, with the British circuit slotted into an intense run of European races in the spring. The timing of the announcement felt pointed too, arriving as Le Mans prepares for a sold-out weekend, with the championship boasting record trackside crowds and 14 manufacturers on the grid, a figure that will only grow when Ford and McLaren join the Hypercar ranks next year.

Silverstone last hosted the championship in 2019, and its absence has long been a sore point for British fans, who have had to make do with day trips to Spa or the pilgrimage to Le Mans. From 2027 they get a world championship round on home soil again, sandwiched between Imola and Spa-Francorchamps in a sequence of three races in little over a month.

Championship CEO Frederic Lequien said the series’ growing popularity convinced organisers that “now is the right time to expand the schedule”, pointing to Silverstone’s history of big crowds and close racing. FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem called the return an important milestone, while ACO President Pierre Fillon predicted 2027 would be the championship’s biggest and best season yet.

The campaign follows a familiar rhythm. The Prologue test at Lusail in late March leads straight into the Qatar 1812km season opener, a race that runs from daylight into darkness. Four European rounds follow in quick succession, with Imola, Silverstone and Spa building towards the centrepiece: the 95th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mid June.

The second half of the year is given over to the flyaways. Interlagos hosts the Brazilian round in July before the championship crosses to Austin for Lone Star Le Mans in September, followed a fortnight later by Fuji. As has become tradition, the titles will be settled under the lights at the 8 Hours of Bahrain in early November.