FIA president Jean Todt has confirmed that Formula 1’s current schedule will expand to “significantly more” than eight races with details on additional races to be announced soon. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Formula 1 confirmed an opening run of eight races, all taking place in Europe. While the tally would qualify as a world championship, efforts are underway to add perhaps more races on the continent and several fly-away events.
“It will be less than 22 races, but would be significantly more than the eight races which have been planned so far,” said Todt last weekend in Austria as quoted by RaceFans.net.- “More detail will be given soon because everybody needs to have more accurate detail about what will be the calendar.”
The difficulty of building F1’s schedule is obviously linked to the evolution of the coronavirus in the countries earmarked to host a race.
“In certain countries the situation is obviously very complex – “So they need to have a lot of creativity to see also what are the possible options which were not planned and to optimise them in order to be able to present the calendar. Some countries started with high [COVID-19] figures which dropped. Some others which came up, like Brazil for example, I’m mentioning that because it’s a grand prix which is planned there. In Vietnam there has been about 350 cases, not one fatality. Austria I mean has been quite a safe country which is not the case of the US, Italy, Spain, France, the UK. So it’s fascinating to see how things are working. Saying that, we are not sure about the accuracy of those figures.” – the former Ferrari boss explained.
Among the venues that could host a Grand Prix in Europe, Mugello and Imola in Italy are keen to put themselves on F1’s map, as is Portimao in Portugal.
But in Asia, Vietnam has expressed its confidence in holding its delayed maiden event in late November in Hanoi.
“We are assessing all virus-related issues and will discuss them with the organisers. Hopefully the race can be resumed by end-November,” said Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of the Hanoi people’s Committee.
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