The COVID-19 pandemic has yet again forced the FIA to make a major change to the yearly calender; the season opener in Australia has been postponed to November, and now, the first race will take place in Bahrain. Moreover, Imola has supplanted the Chinese GP.
Given that the new strain of the virus is spreading quite rapidly and forcing shutdowns again, a shortened season that includes doubleheaders like the ones we saw last year is a very real possibility.
Speaking to ORF as quoted by Motorsport-Total, Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff, said, “This fear is of course justified, Australia has been postponed, but the Grand Prix is so important that they didn’t want to cancel it entirely. It will follow suit at the end of the year.”
“And China has a general ban for major events until August. These are two factors that cannot be influenced. That’s why we start in Bahrain.”
Toto Wolff has high hopes
The Mercedes team boss is optimistic for the midpoint of the upcoming season, He stated, “I assume that we will have a reasonably normal season again after the summer”
2021 CALENDAR UPDATE
🇧🇭 Season starts in Bahrain 26-28 Mar
🇦🇺 Australia moves to 19-21 Nov
🇮🇹 Imola returns 16-18 Apr; China discussions ongoingDates of Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi races all change#F1 pic.twitter.com/4QoP0gKKsA
— Formula 1 (@F1) January 12, 2021
The plan for this season is to have 23 races throughout the year, but the pandemic creates a big obstacle to do so. Wolff commented, “It will certainly be incredibly difficult for the race team too. We will have three triple headers in a row.
“You won’t come home for four weeks. That is of course an enormous burden.”
No matter how optimistic or pessimistic we are for F1 to get back to a somewhat normal state, we will only find out once the season starts on March 28 and we get through the 23 races, one after the other.
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