2020 F1 Season Might Extend to 2021 Pushing New Regulations to 2022 Due to Coronavirus, Claims Reports
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Sadly for F1 fans, the 2020 season will not begin on the 15th of March. The teams were already in Australia for the race weekend, until one McLaren employee contracted the coronavirus. McLaren pulled out immediately and the FIA later decided to no go ahead with the race.
So, the F1 circus will promptly fly back to Europe, sit and wait for the new season to eventually begin. According to Auto Motor und Sport, the teams agreed to self-impose a two-week quarantine upon their return.
The Australia 2020 GP witnessed a cancellation without any of the 2020 cars taking to the track. This is also the second time a race has been cancelled, with the first one being the 1985 Belgian Grand Prix.
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The Australian authorities were confident of hosting a race, because the country was not as badly affected. However, the McLaren employee’s positive test made them change their tune quickly.
How did the McLaren F1 team react?
Commendably, the Woking outfit promptly quarantined 14 employees who were in contact with the affected colleague. The bad news was that he was also in contact with workers from other teams.
Luckily, doctors were able to identify the people who were in touch and confirmed that they were in no danger. However, F1 was not taking any chances and chose to go ahead with the cancellation.
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Teams agree to place race staff in quarantine until March 29. Cancelled GPs could be held during summer break. If necessary the season could be even extended to 2021. Next generation F1 cars might be postponed to 2022 in that case.
AMuS (in German): https://t.co/OkorAW713b
— Tobi Grüner 🏁 (@tgruener) March 13, 2020
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What compromises were reached?
In addition to the Australian GP, Bahrain and Vietnam also stared at a cancellation. After the McLaren incident, the teams agreed to voluntarily avoid their factories until March 29 and go into self-imposed quarantine.
Admittedly, June’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix is a realistic target to host the start of the 2020 F1 season. Furthermore, the summer break would be brought forward.
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According to Racing Point, the factories would shut down completely for two weeks. The usual summer break month would then be used to squeeze in the missed races. On the other end of the scale, things will be supremely hectic for the F1 teams.
It is not so easy to just shoehorn in races between gaps in the calendar. However, there is also a fairly far-fetched idea of extending the 2020 season to 2021.
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