Due to the global pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus, global events in all forms and sizes are being cancelled or postponed. Formula 1 has been immune to this as the 2020 F1 season opener in Australia was cancelled at the last minute this past Friday. While the race in China, where the virus has originated from was already cancelled, now it has been confirmed that the Bahrain GP and the Vietnamese GP have also been postponed.
Formula 1 and the FIA have stated that the organisers of the events and sport are hopeful that the season will begin sometime at the end May, but it will be regularly reviewed till then as the situation has intensified in Europe as well. This would mean that the Dutch GP and Spanish GP may also be moved to a later date as both of these races were scheduled to take place in early May.
The joint statement released by the F1 and FIA state that “Formula 1 and the FIA continue to work closely with the race promoters in Bahrain and Vietnam and the local health authorities to monitor the situation and take the appropriate amount of time to study the viability of potential alternative dates for each Grand Prix later in the year should the situation improve.
While the 2020 season was already packed with 22 scheduled Grand Prix’s on the calendar, it is said that the summer break in August is likely to be cancelled as the postponed Grand Prixs are likely to be accommodated in that time period. However, this would mean that the scheduled would be extremely tightly scheduled season with a few triple header weeks. Something teams are not happy with. But it in order to curb the tight, long and hectic schedules, F1 may test out a 2-day weekend format instead of the stable 3-day weekend.