F1 Talk: Will the 2020 season even happen; Next race Melbourne 2021?

The coronavirus does not look like it is going to stop anytime soon which means motorsport across the globe cannot get underway anytime soon.

Just three weeks ago, the 2020 Formula One World Championship was about to get underway. Teams, drivers, media, everyone was in Melbourne, raring to go and get the season started.

Fast forward and the Australian & Monaco Grand Prix has been cancelled, Bahrain, China, Vietnam, Netherlands, Spain and Azerbaijan all postponed. The earliest the season will start is the middle of June in Canada but that is now set to be called off in the coming days.

Liberty Media and Formula One will be flexible with the calendar with the teams currently shutting down their factories which normally happens for two weeks in August.

Many major countries including the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, France, Spain and USA are on the same trajectories as China and Italy, just 2-3 weeks behind. That is a scary prospect but one that will happen if we do not stop or slow down the spread very soon.

In my opinion, there is very little chance of the F1 season starting in July, nevermind June. More races will be postponed and the chances of the next F1 race happening in 12 months time is increasing because COVID-19 is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

The best scenario now is to start the season in July and finish in January before beginning the 2021 season in April and finishing at the normal time of November/December with 16-18 races for each season. A realistic possibility? In theory yes but it all relies on the coronavirus peaking in the next 12 weeks.

F1 involves so much travel as well as masses of people gathering to watch a race. And those people have come from all different types of places. Once one person gets infected and infects another, the number of cases double from that one person. Two becomes four, four becomes eight etc. and as soon as you know it, one person’s infection can cause thousands of coronavirus cases.

Essentially, after 10 days if just one person has the infection and does little to isolate themselves, the virus will be passed onto another 1000 people and that’s all from just one person.

This is a big problem for F1 because it is such a global sport and people travel from different countries just to see the race, it could cause havoc and it will be difficult to deal with.

The only way to solve it is to have all races behind closed doors until the virus stops spreading. Even then, if one team member gets infected, the race weekend will almost certainly be called off just like what happened in Australia two weeks ago. The risk is too much, hence why I believe there will be no F1 action until winter.

Why winter you ask? If the coronavirus starts to die down in Autumn, September-October time, it would be too late to start a new season in my opinion so I propose a superseason a little bit like the FIA World Endurance Championship did for the 2018/19 season.

There is no point waiting until March if we can go racing straight away, so F1 needs to be ready to adapt the schedule quickly and be creative and innovative with its calendar. The cars will be ready to go and I am sure the teams and drivers will be too once the pandemic is no longer a threat.

The facts are, for an F1 season to count and have world championship status, at least eight races must be completed and the series must visit at least three different continents.

But, smaller teams such as Williams, Haas and Alfa Romeo need races to happen because that is how they generate 50% of their revenue. This is why so many teams in all forms of motorsport are hoping and praying to get their respective seasons underway because the way they make money is by going racing.

For journalists and the media and the circuit staff, they make money by racing taking place. Everyone is going to lose out of there is no racing soon and the consequences of this will be felt towards the end of this year. The effects could be devastating.

What will happen? Who knows. Ultimately, the horizon does not look good and to anyone reading this. Stay inside and do your bit. It makes a genuine difference. If everyone followed this rule, then sport and F1 will be back on your TV screens sooner rather than later.

Stay safe everyone.