IMS opens its first season with eight scheduled rounds on F1 24 and no previous championship table to consult. Brazil begins the calendar before Monza and the inaugural Mystery Race carry the series through its first three meetings.
D1 and D2 form the opening grid. D3 is scheduled to join at Las Vegas in Round 4, turning one championship launch into a mid-season expansion as well.
Brazil starts a calendar that refuses repetition
The route runs through Brazil, Monza, a Mystery Race, Las Vegas, Silverstone, Abu Dhabi, Spa and Austria. Only one slot withholds its circuit identity in advance, which is quite enough mischief for a new league finding its feet.
The schedule also changes scale. The first three events list two divisions; the final five list three, so teams and drivers will not be solving the same organisational problem in December that they face in early November.
There is no defending champion and no inherited hierarchy
A normal preview can lean on last season's winners, points gaps and grudges. Season 1 has none of them. Every favourite would be a guess wearing a confident expression, so the honest competitive picture begins blank.
That leaves Brazil with an unusually large job: produce the first race winners, the first championship leaders and the first evidence worth arguing about. IMS has eight rounds to build a history; Round 1 has to supply the opening sentence.
