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Australia still in line to host 2021 F1 season opener
Formula 1’s 2021 season is still set to start in Australia despite the COVID-19 pandemic, while a new street race in Saudi Arabia is also likely to join the calendar.
The 2020 season schedule had to be completely revised due to COVID, with the championship only officially starting in Austria in early July with back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring. An initial attempt to start 2020 in Melbourne as planned was cancelled on the Friday of the race weekend after a McLaren team member tested positive for the virus, and led to the sport going into shutdown as the world dealt with the global outbreak.
Now a 17-race schedule has been finalized that will end in Abu Dhabi on December 13, attention has turned to the 2021 plans that still prove extremely challenging due to the uncertainty of the COVID situation moving forward.
Australia enacted extremely harsh travel restrictions to control the virus, and currently only returning Australian citizens, residents and those with special permissions are allowed into the country. The majority have to quarantine for two weeks, and there is a limit of 4,000 people per week who can enter, but the restrictions have not stopped plans to start the 2021 season in its traditional location of Melbourne.
Albert Park is due to kick-off a 22-race calendar -- the same amount of races that were originally on this year’s schedule -- with RACER understanding at least one new addition is likely to be added in the form of a street race in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, late in the year. There has been an increase in Saudi investment in the sport in recent years, including the arrival of energy company Aramco as a global partner and race sponsor this season.
Plans for the 2021 calendar remain provisional due to the COVID-19 situation, with increasing numbers of cases in Europe seeing further restrictions introduced in many countries -- including the UK where F1 is based -- in recent weeks.
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.
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