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Formula One and the governing FIA said on
Friday they expected to begin the championship in Europe at the
end of May, subject to regular review.
"The global situation regarding COVID-19 is fluid and very
difficult to predict and its right we take time to assess the
situation and make the right decisions," Formula One chairman
Chase Carey said.
An end of May date would rule out the Dutch and Spanish races
currently scheduled for May 3 and 10 in Zandvoort and Barcelona.
Monaco, a glamorous highlight of the motor racing calendar, is
round seven on May 24.
The Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne was canceled because of
the coronavirus outbreak only hours before the first practice
session was scheduled to get underway at Albert Park on Friday.
That was followed by the postponement of Bahrain's March 22
race, already scheduled to be run without spectators under
floodlights at the Sakhir circuit, and the debut of Vietnam in
Hanoi on April 5.
Formula One had already postponed the April 19 Chinese Grand
Prix in Shanghai.
McLaren announced on Thursday they would not be racing in
Australia after an employee tested positive for the virus and
champions Mercedes then called for a cancellation.
That in turn made Bahrain's postponement inevitable, with some
team members in quarantine.
EXTENDED BREAK
The prospect of an extended break was mooted by Formula One even
before the latest announcements.
"Maybe we take a hiatus, we take a pause," Formula One
motorsport managing director Ross Brawn told Sky Sports
television in Melbourne.
"And we use that opportunity to say 'right, for this time at the
beginning of the year we won't have any races. We'll look at
relocating those races later in the year.
"And I think by freeing up the August break we give ourselves
several weekends when we could have a race and I think we can
build a pretty decent calendar for the rest of the year. It will
look different."
The break runs from the Aug. 2 Hungarian Grand Prix to Belgium
on Aug. 30.
There is some scope to squeeze races into weekends later in the
year, with a gap between Brazil and the Abu Dhabi season-ender
in November that could be stretched further if the final race is
pushed into December.
Any race cancellation is a major concern for teams, whose
budgets depend on a share of the sport's revenues, and Formula
One's U.S.-based commercial rights holders Liberty Media.
"The teams survive on their funding from races. So this will
have an impact on the teams' budgets for the future," said
Brawn.
"It will have an impact on our economics as a company. Each race
you lose, then it has an impact."
Formula One's 2020 calendar was supposed to be a record 22
races, with Vietnam and the Netherlands coming in and Germany
departing.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Angus MacSwan
and Toby Davis)
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