FIA: 'I think half of next year, will not be as we could have expected'

In 2020, Formula 1 faced an enormous challenge to come up with a representative calendar. Liberty Media and the FIA succeeded with flying colours and organised a total of seventeen Grands Prix in 23 weeks. Possibly the same scenario awaits the 2021 agenda.

In any case, Jean Todt warns against this. The FIA President knows that the coronavirus knows no borders and that it is therefore possible for Grand Prix to disappear from the calendar. The first of these may be the Australian Grand Prix. According to several sources, the season opener at Melbourne Park is in jeopardy.

"It's not like the season is ending, [so] we start from a white piece of paper. Lockdown is still going to happen, confinement, the virus is there. There has been progress. We are expecting a vaccine, so it will be good for the population, good for the planet to be able to enjoy that," says Todt.

The Frenchman says nothing about whether or not vaccination will be compulsory for the F1 paddock at some point. Honda boss Masashi Yamamoto Honda: "That will depend on the next few months (gpblog.com)."

FIA takes account of F1 calendar change

Todt continues his story: "But I'm sure that over the next days, we will hear quite a lot of potential changes on the different calendars, not only Formula 1, but on other calendars. If I had to commit on a back to kind of normal, even if I feel it will be a different life behind the COVID-19 crisis, I think half of next year, in my opinion, will not be as we could have expected to have in a normal season."