Formula 1 is set to confirm the start of the 2020 season with a double-header in Austria in July imminently, reports from the country claim.
It’s not new news that, despite the coronavirus pandemic continuing globally, the Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring is pushing to take place on its original date of July 5.
Last week, the Strategy Group began to consider measures that would be needed for the race behind closed doors to go ahead, this included no independent media and mandatory Covid-19 testing of all team and other personnel who planned to head to Spielberg, complete with a certificate of confirmation.
Providing all the measures can be met, two GP’s, the first on July 5 and another on July 12, are expected to be announced, with Austria’s O3 radio station saying only a second wave of infections would put that at risk.
This is a slight change with what Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko previously suggested, as he claimed a Wednesday evening race could take place, three days after the original Sunday event.
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All this is being said though while officially, at least for now, the French GP at Paul Ricard is actually still pencilled in as the first race on June 28.
Recently, a ban of public events was extended seemingly confirmed it would be postponed, but new reporting says organisers have yet to do that as they too consider a closed-door race but want to strike a deal with F1 bosses first.
And as for where F1 goes after Austria is now appearing less certain, as the continued high number of cases in Britain throws plans for another double-header at Silverstone into doubt.
Another question will be whether teams, who are currently observing a five-week factory shutdown, would be ready to start racing on July 5 after such a lengthy delay.
“I think we are all in a state with our teams that it is not a big issue even after a longer break to go back to a race track and get up and running again,” McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl told Crash.net
“We are managing to do that after the winter break with completely new cars year by year and if you see the reliability there and the operation I don’t think it is a big issue to be honest.
“We were ready to go racing in Australia, but, in the end, we have to pack our stuff again and head to the race track to have two days of preparation then we are ready to go.”