The 2009 Formula One™ season will be the 60th FIA Formula One™ World Championship season. As it stands, there are a total of seven teams signed up to compete in the championship through an agreement with Formula One Management™ (reduced from eight following Super Aguri's pull out of the 2008 season), while the other three major manufacturers in the Grand Prix Manufacturers’ Association (GPMA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the 2006 Spanish Grand Prix to compete in the 2009 season. There is also still a chance that Prodrive could debut in the 2009 season, given that no definitive statement has been made indefinitely abandoning the prospective team's F1 aspirations. However, given that customer cars - the basis of Prodrive's plans - will no longer be allowed in F1 from 2009, and further given that Prodrive is no longer guaranteed to be accepted on the 2009 grid after failing to meet their 2008 obligations, this must be seen as a very remote possibility.

Confirmed Calendar changes
On February 3, 2007, it was announced that a new race in the United Arab Emirates will be held in Abu Dhabi, known as the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It will be added to the 2009 calendar as part of Formula One's expansion in the Middle East. The race will take place at the Yas Island Circuit which is currently being built on Yas Island by the construction company Aldar. On April 10, 2008, the organisers were told that the Grand Prix would take place in October 2009, but it was later confirmed on the provisional FIA calendar that this is not the case.

After being dropped in 2007 to the Fuji Speedway, the Suzuka Circuit will return to host the Japanese Grand Prix in 2009. The race will then alternate between the two circuits.

After the 2006 United States Grand Prix, Bernie Ecclestone and Ron Dennis announced the possibility of a new Grand Prix in South Korea entering in 2009. It has now been revealed though that the Korean Grand Prix will take place from 2010 at the soon-to-be built Korean International Circuit. In addition to this, India has been confirmed on the Grand Prix calendar in 2010 with the Indian Grand Prix taking place in Delhi.

On 12 May 2008 Bernie Ecclestone confirmed the 2008 French Grand Prix as the last race to be held at Magny Cours and as a result the French Grand Prix may be dropped from the 2009 Formula One season and possibly return at a location in Paris in 2010. After the race, however, he said that it would stay on the calendar, as they had a contract until 2011.

On 28 September 2008 Malaysia's Sepang circuit boss Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir has told the local newspaper The Star that Malaysia's F1 contract has been altered simply to accommodate a delayed race start, rather than conversion into a night race.

On October 7, 2008, the FIA formalized the 2009 season calendar with the dropping of the Canadian Grand Prix (for financial problems) and the Turkish Grand Prix moved to June 7, 2009. Excluding the Indianapolis 500, this will be the first year since 1958 that there will be no Formula One Grand Prix in North America. The race had been on the provisional schedule, before being dropped.

On October 15, 2008, the organisers of the French Grand Prix announced via their official website that the race would no longer be part of the 2009 season, citing "economic problems". This will be the second time ever that there has not been a French Grand Prix on the schedule since the start of modern F1 in 1950. The only previous time was 1955. The race had been on the "final" schedule for 2009.

Teams & Drivers

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton	Heikki Kovalainen
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Kimi Räikkönen	Felipe Massa
BMW Sauber F1 Team
Nick Heidfeld	Robert Kubica
ING Renault F1 Team
TBA	TBA
Panasonic Toyota Racing
Jarno Trulli	Timo Glock
Scuderia Toro Rosso
TBA	TBA
Red Bull Racing
Mark Webber	Sebastian Vettel
AT&T Williams
Nico Rosberg	Kazuki Nakajima
Honda Racing F1 Team
TBA	TBA
Force India F1 Team
Giancarlo Fisichella	Adrian Sutil

2009 Race schedule

The calendar was first published by the FIA on 7 October 2008.
The below calendar also takes into account the changes announced after this date.

Rd.	Official Race Title	Circuit	City	Date
1	ING Australian Grand Prix	Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit	Melbourne	March 29
2	Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix	Sepang International Circuit	Kuala Lumpur	April 5
3	Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix	Bahrain International Circuit	Sakhir	April 19
4	Gran Premio de España Telefónica	Circuit de Catalunya	Barcelona	May 10
5	Grand Prix de Monaco	Circuit de Monaco	Monte-Carlo	May 24
6	Petrol Ofisi Turkish Grand Prix	Istanbul Park	Istanbul	June 7
7	Santander British Grand Prix	Silverstone Circuit	Silverstone	June 21
8	Großer Preis von Deutschland**	Nürburgring	Nürburg	July 12
9	Magyar Nagydíj	Hungaroring	Budapest	July 26
10	Telefónica Grand Prix of Europe	Valencia Street Circuit	Valencia	August 23
11	ING Belgian Grand Prix	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps	Spa	August 30
12	Gran Premio Santander d'Italia	Autodromo Nazionale Monza	Monza	September 13
13	SingTel Singapore Grand Prix	Marina Bay Street Circuit	Singapore	September 27
14	Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix	Suzuka Circuit	Suzuka	October 11
15	Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix	Shanghai International Circuit	Shanghai	October 18
16	Grande Prêmio do Brasil	Autódromo José Carlos Pace	São Paulo	November 1
17	Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix	Yas Marina Circuit	Abu Dhabi	November 15

** As was the practice in 2007, if an agreement cannot be reached over the naming rights, then the Grand Prix held at Nürburgring will likely be named something other than the "German Grand Prix" - as the Hockenheimring currently holds all naming rights for the "German Grand Prix". The last Grand Prix to be held at the Nürburgring that was not named the European Grand Prix were held in 1997 in 1998, under the name Luxembourg Grand Prix. However, while currently the name "European Grand Prix" is reserved for the Valencia Street Circuit this could be changed to the "Mediterranean Grand Prix".

Rule changes

• On 22 December 2006, the FIA released the technical regulations for the 2009 season.
  Along with changes to bodywork, vehicle weight and tyre size, the document includes details of a "Kinetic Energy Recovery System", or KERS. This is a regenerative brake device that is designed to recover some of the vehicle's kinetic energy that is normally dissipated as heat during braking. The recovered energy could be stored electrically, in a battery or supercapacitor, or mechanically, in a flywheel, for use as a source of additional accelerative power at the driver's discretion.
  
• After being banned since 1998, slick tyres will be provided by Bridgestone in 2009.
  
• There will also be a cap on team budgets starting in the 2009 season.
  
• Section 3.18 of the regulations contains details of "driver adjustable bodywork". The angle of incidence of elements in a defined area forward of the front wheels can be varied by up to 6 degrees and adjusted by direct driver input. A maximum of 2 adjustments can be made on any lap.