This year’s Formula 1 World Championship has been dealt another blow with confirmation that the now season-opening Canadian Grand Prix scheduled for June 12-14 has been postponed. As such, the sport is now looking to commence the season in July.
The season was set to kick off on March 15 in Australia, but the race was called off just hours before the first practice session after a member from the McLaren team tested positive for coronavirus.
In the weeks since, the Monaco Grand Prix has also been canceled, while races in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, China, Holland, Spain, and Vietnam have been postponed.
According to Formula 1 motorsport boss Ross Brawn, the 2020 F1 season will likely start in Europe, perhaps in July and could run until January 2021, giving the sport enough time to hold up to 19 races over the course of the shortened season.
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“We’re looking at the organizational structure which would give us the earliest start. But also the ability to maintain that start. There’s no point having a start and then stopping again for a while. It’s most likely to be in Europe. It’s conceivable that it could be a closed event,” he said to Sky Sports.
Brawn added that there needs to be at least eight races for a world championship according to FIA Statutes. If worse came to pass and the sport could not to kick off until October, eight races could still be held.
“But then there is always the possibility we could run into next year. That’s being explored. Can we stray into January to finish the season? There are all sorts of complications, as you can imagine, with that,” Brawn said. “If we were able to start at the beginning of July we could do a 19-race season. [It would be] tough – three races on, one weekend off, three races on, one weekend off. We have looked at all the logistics, and we think we can hold an 18-19 race season if we can get started at the beginning of July. The choice is between those two numbers.”
