Yahoo Autos 2021 F1 Schedule Concerns Already Weighing on Series Organizers
The early cancellation of the 2021 Adelaide 500 in Australia sent concerns through the F1 world.
A provisional schedule of 23 F1 races for 2021 has been making the rounds within the teams.
The Australia Open tennis championships scheduled for late January could determine whether or not an F1 race in Australia in March is realistic.
The COVID-19 pandemic meant that the 2020 Formula 1 race calendar had to be completely rebuilt with non-European races in particular being unable to take part, because of the constantly changing restrictions and the logistical problems involved.
The hope is that a 2021 schedule will be normal.
Hope is the operative word.
F1 CEO and chairman Chase Carey told the in-house F1 podcast that the 2021 calendar will probably look “a bit more like the calendar we planned for this year."
"We want to get back to making sure we have our races in the Americas, we have our races in Asia, we have races spread across the globe," he said. "That is important to us as a global sport. We have some great historic tracks that are obviously part of our calendar. Tracks like Silverstone, Monza, Monaco, Spa. So certainly historic European tracks are an important part of the sport. But I think you’ll see a more balanced set of events across the globe on the 2021 calendar.”
It’s the beginning of November, however, and although there have been various drafts of a calendar circulating, nothing is official. It's getting harder to believe that any close to normal is happening in 2021.
Teams have already seen the framework of an ambitious 23-race schedule.
“What we don’t really know is what will be the state of Covid next year and how we navigate through it,” Carey said. “We’re planning for events, were planning to have fans, we’re planning to have a season that I don’t know that I’d say is ‘normal’, but certainly gets us back to normal, closer to normal.”
In theory, the sport should kick off in Australia in mid-March. That is what the contracts dictate, but although Australia is starting to come out of its first wave of infections, motor sport is still being affected. Even if the local lockdowns are lifted, the government still wants to stop people from coming and going for much of next year.
Australia’s treasurer Josh Frydenberg said recently that the country’s budget assumes that “international travel, including by tourists and international students, is assumed to remain largely closed off until late next year and then gradually return over time.”
It is possible that F1 could negotiate exemptions, but would Australians turn up in large numbers to watch a Formula 1 Grand Prix? The race is designed to attract visitors, but would it in the current circumstances?
Everyone is watching to see what happens with the Australian Open tennis championship, which is scheduled for Melbourne from January 20-February 2. If that goes ahead, it will obviously boost the chances of a Grand Prix, but a decision is needed before then if the F1 race is to go ahead as the Australian GP requires two months of construction work in Albert Park.
The cancellation of the Bathurst 12 Hours, scheduled for the weekend of January 31–February 2 next year in Australia, has come as a big shock. This is a big event and the opening round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge. It attracted 43,111 people across the three days in 2020.
Another Australian event raising eyebrows in Australia is the Adelaide 500, which has attracted as many as 297,000 over four days, which is not far short of the Grand Prix crowd in Melbourne. The Adelaide race has not only been axed for 2021, but the South Australia’s Tourism Commission has killed the entire event and will not renew its contract with the series promoter Supercars Australia. The SATC said that it was impossible to recoup the costs of the event during the pandemic.
“Due to the high level of uncertainty around the ability of the event to proceed in 2021, the likely impact on the event for both the consumer and commercial market, and the long-term decline in our core motorsport fan, a decision has been made that it will not be possible to hold the race next year, and to not seek a contract for future years.
“At the end of the day, with the current set of circumstances we are not in a position to deliver a sustainable, successful future for the event for next year and beyond.”
The SATC argued that there is now “a terrific world-class motor racing facility,” known as The Bend, which can host big events. But The Bend is 65 miles to the east of the city and so will not attract the same kind of crowds.
Amidst all this uncertainty with the 2021 schedule have been rumors for some time that current series owners Liberty Media might not be averse to selling Formula 1. The appearance of Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei in Portugal was a little odd. Maffei is not a racing fan and comes to very few races. Popping over to a relatively obscure race in Portugal at the height of the second wave of the pandemic is a strange thing to do. One might speculate that this was something he did for meetings but the major F1 commercial discussions are finished and, in any case, this is Carey’s work. Maffei is not required.
Perhaps it was a good opportunity to meet the new F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali in person. However, his presence led to speculation that there could be other meetings happening.
The COVID-19 pandemic has destroyed all the projections of Liberty’s return on investment from Formula 1. It will take a lot longer for the company to cash in. To be fair, it has already done well and got back more than it spent by selling off shares, but it bought F1 because it could see big profits.
Thanks in large part to a pandemic no one could of imagined, those big profits are not there any longer.
Is Formula 1 looking at a second coronavirus calendar in 2021? Will we see the series in the United States next year? Start the conversation in the comments section below.
