As Formula 1 struggles under the weight of postponed and canceled grands prix, the series looks to creative solutions to somehow salvage as much fo a season as they can. To those ends, a host of creative ideas have been floated and many are being discussed.
According to Stuart Pringle, the managing director of the Silverstone circuit and host of the British Grand Prix, the track is willing to host two consecutive races over a weekend or in back-to-back weekends.
“We have discussed all sorts of permutations including hosting two races over one weekend and two races over consecutive weekends,” Pringle said. “I have complete confidence in our ability to put on these events. We have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, we can turn that on definitely.”
As of now, the French Grand Prix is still slated for June 28th but with the French government extending a ban on mass gatherings until July, it is thought that the race will be postponed or canceled. This leaves the Austrian Grand Prix on July 5th and the promoters have said they would be willing to consider a closed-gate race should it come to that.
As you can imagine, the previous 2020 F1 race calendar has had to be scrapped and in its place, a new, provisional calendar has to be created to compress as many races into the 2020 season as possible and this has to be done with race promoters, circuit owners, logistics with the teams, the FIA and the nations who host these races. This is no easy task but it does mean an all-new calendar must be made.
“I think F1 will make a calendar-wide decision in the earlier part of May,” said Pringle. “They can’t set this ball rolling unless they have a solution that stands a fighting chance of running successfully over multiple races. That timescale would suit us if we didn’t have to put in the infrastructure for accommodating the public.”
At this point, there are other options being considered but a compressed schedule might mean that moving all of these races to different times of the year may not work or with governments varying on the projected recovery dates and local mandates on mass gatherings, some race circuits may be used for multiple races.
At this point, I am curious if one could consider this season a real championship. If Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel or Max Mosley had the most points after 8-15 races with several being at the same circuit that may or may not favor a particular car, would you consider this a legitimate season?
Hat Tip: The Guardian
A season is still a season if it meets the minimum requirements. Nothing was said about how many tracks had to have a race.
Tricky one, it depends on how many venues are available and what the rotation of circuits are. Whatever happens, it feels like Sport and not just motorsport has to decide pretty soon if its going to keep taking a theoretical approach to when it can return during this season or shift approach and cancel the season. I notice the National league which is lower division football in the UK decided to conclude its season yesterday.