Officials from the FIA and the ACO have confirmed a provisional eight-race schedule for the 2019-20 World Endurance Championship season, with Bahrain and Sao Paulo reꦗturning to the series' calendar.

Following the shift to a winter schedule for 2018-19 that allowed the 24 Hours of Le Mans to remain the final round of the season, WEC organisers have opted to stick with this format fo🐷r the 2019-20 campaign that will start at Silverstone on September 1 next year.

The calendar sees previously dropped races in Bahrain and Sao Paulo return, while Sebring is listed as a TBC round ahead of its first WEC race sin♏ce 2012 that will📖 take place next spring.

One🐼 of the most dr👍amatic changes to the schedule sees the introduction of varied-length races. Straying from the existing six-hour format for all rounds except Le Mans, new four-hour and eight-hour long races have been added to the schedule. Silverstone and Shanghai will both be four-hour events, while the returning Bahrain round will be eight hours long.

WEC CEO Gerard Neveu confirmed in a news conference at Silverstone that the Shanghai race weekend could shift forward to November 10 in order to avoid a clash with the Macau GT event on the November 17 weekend, with the finer details on the calendar set to be confirmed in the✅ comi♉ng months before it is ratified by the World Motor Sport Council.

The WEC will also look for a replacement round in North America should🅠 ﷽the planned race at Sebring not go ahead in 2020.

FIA World Endurance Championship Provisional 2019-20 Calendar

1. 4 Hours of Silverstone - September 1
2. 6 Hours of Fuji - October 13
3. 4 Hours of Shanghai - November 17
4. 8 Hours of Bahrain - December 14
5. 6 Hours of Sao Paulo - February 1, 2020
6. 1000 Miles of Sebring - March 2020 (date TBC)*
7. 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps - May 3, 2020
8. 24 Hours of Le Mans - June 13-14, 2020

* To be confirmed