Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
F1 French and Belgian GPs in further doubt
The French Grand Prix in June and the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August have both moved closer to being postponed due to restrictions in their respective countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that restrictions on public events would continue until mid-July, leading the Tour de France cycle race -- scheduled to start on June 27, the same weekend as the French GP -- to be pushed back to August and September. A longer ban on mass-gathering events in Belgium was announced on Wednesday, running until August 31, one day after the original date for the race at Spa-Francorchamps.
While either event could potentially be held behind closed doors, the restrictions would certainly prevent them from taking place as normal if there are no revisions. And F1 has now issued an update to ticket holders for any grand prix that suggests any final 2020 season calendar is unlikely to be closely based on existing race dates.
“In light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation Formula 1 has announced a number of race postponements in the interests of safety for our fans, the communities we visit and the F1 community. As stated recently our intention is to start the 2020 season at some point this summer.
“At this time no one can be certain of exactly when the situation will improve, but when it does, we will be ready to go racing again. We are all committed to bringing our fans a 2020 championship season.
“Formula 1 is currently working with our promoters on a revised 2020 calendar with the actual sequence and schedule dates for races likely to differ significantly from our original 2020 calendar. This will be published in due course.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
Read Chris Medland's articles
Latest News
Comments
Comments are disabled until you accept Social Networking Cookies. Update cookie preferences
If the dialog doesn't appear, ad-blockers are often the cause; try disabling yours or see our Social Features Support.