Formula E has started early-stage consultation with teams about the possibility of adding a race to its 2026-27 calendar, held at Formula 1 venue Barcelona.

The possibility of adding a race was tabled at a meeting of team principals in Tokyo last Friday after what The Race believes was an approach from the Barcelona circuit to open a discussion about the feasibility of staging a race. 

The all-electric world championship issued its ratified calendar last month, which is the biggest it's ever announced with 21 races at 13 venues spanning December 2026 to July 2027. 

The possibility of going to Barcelona, which was first reported by the German website e-formel.de last week, is not an overt contingency for the possibility of Formula E not being able to open the Gen4 era in Jeddah because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The possibility of a race at Barcelona was deemed "very low" by Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds last week, but further discussions between Formula E Operations (FEO) and the circuit are set to continue in the coming weeks.

Barcelona is not set to host an F1 race in 2027; it will enter into rotation with Belgian Grand Prix venue Spa-Francorchamps, with the Barcelona GP due to take place in 2028, 2030 and 2032.

The Spanish GP name that Barcelona previously held has for 2026 gone to race at the Madring in the Spanish capital, which will host its first grand prix this September. 

"The true picture is that we had a live, quite early-stage conversation with that location[Barcelona]," Dodds told The Race in Tokyo.

"We're talking to people the whole time and with that particular location, there was just a genuine question of: would we be able to do something? And if it were to be next year, the process for that means we've announced a calendar, so it would require unilateral approval by all the teams.

"So, all Alberto [Longo, Formula E co-founder] did in that meeting was say, 'Look, I think this is unlikely, but in the event that it was proposed, what do people think?' Because we already have 21 races in the calendar, so it's a 13-location, 21-race calendar, it's a big calendar, and there's a couple of back-to-backs already, so what do people think?"

Dodds added that the discussions with the teams were "just a temperature check" and said: "Actually, we talked about that location, but we could have been talking about any location, because we actually have a couple of other live conversations that we are talking about next year.

"I think the likelihood of a new race coming into the calendar that's already been announced is actually very low. Personally, I think it's very low - not impossible, but very low - but we needed to understand where the teams' heads were before we know whether there's any point having the conversations with locations or not."

Threat to opener being monitored

The possibility of the Gen4 era of Formula E not being able to begin until the Mexico City E-Prix in January 2027 remains but will ultimately not be decided until the end of October at the earliest.

That was the message sent out by Formula E in Tokyo last weekend, after further incidents between Iran and the US began to flare up and escalate again this month, casting doubt on the planned season-opener in Jeddah on December 18/19 later this year.

Several strikes on surrounding countries such as Qatar and Bahrain, which border Saudi Arabia, occurred, and are of concern for manufacturers in particular due to insurance and staff-welfare concerns. 

Formula E uses specialist threat assessment companies, which liaise with some of FEO's senior executive staff and management teams across all venues. These are being utilised regularly ahead of races.

"We use some pretty big organisations to do threat assessments for us, some of the best out there, and we also talk to some of our manufacturing partners, because they're generally bigger businesses, to say: what are your policies around travelling to the Middle East at the moment, and where are your levels of threat assessment?" confirmed Dodds. 

"I'm not sure there's any point sitting here in July, updating teams on threat assessments for the Middle East, when literally it's changing weekly there at the moment.

"What we've agreed is, maybe end of September, beginning of October, we'll do a proper dip in again and look at where the threat levels are, and then we're going to have to make a call, kind of end of October, beginning of November, because we'll have testing, and from testing the cars will get shipped out to the first race."