Chinese Grand Prix 2020: When can F1 reschedule cancelled race for?

Liberty Media’s decision to postpone the Chinese Grand Prix leaves few alternative options for the Shanghai event to take place later in the year without dramatically increasing the teams’ workloady

Formula One have left the door open to staging the Chinese Grand Prix later in the year should the state of the coronavirus outbreak improve, but the 2020 calendar laves little wiggle room for the even to be rescheduled.

F1 and the FIA released a joint statement on Wednesday to confirm that the 17-19 April at the Shanghai International Circuit postponed indefinitely after it was deemed unsafe to travel to China due to the recent virus outbreak, which has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation after more than 1,000 people died and 45,000 positive cases were detected.

Following the additions of the Vietnam and Netherlands Grands Prix, the 2020 F1 calendar has swelled to an all-time high of 22 races before the Chinese round was cancelled, meaning that teams will still have 21 races to tackle unless there are any further changes.

The Vietnam Grand Prix is deemed at most risk given Hanoi’s close proximity to the Chinese border, although there have only been 14 positive cases of coronavirus in Vietnam and the FIA have played down the prospect of cancelling the inaugural event even though they will monitor the situation.

With confirmation that the Chinese Grand Prix will not take place as scheduled in mid-April, F1 now face the difficult prospect of trying to squeeze it in through the remainder of the calendar – which begins on 15 March with the Australian Grand Prix and ends on 29 November in Abu Dhabi.

The issue is that the obvious timeframe for the race to be rescheduled – the summer break between Monday 3 August and Friday 28 August – involves a factory shutdown, where any personnel directly involved with a team’s design, build or operation must take an obligatory break.

Article 21.8 of the sporting regulations states: “All competitors must observe a shutdown period of 14 consecutive days during the time that two consecutive events are separated by at least 24 days during the months of July and/or August.

“If two consecutive events during this period are separated by only 17 days a shutdown period of 13 consecutive days must be observed. In either case competitors should notify the FIA of their intended shutdown period within 30 days of the start of the championship season.”

That causes a major headache for Formula One. Against their wishes, there will now be a month’s gap between the Vietnam Grand Prix at the start of April and the Netherlands Grand Prix on the first weekend in May, before races start to come thick and fast.

Currently, the only weekends throughout the calendar that are not allocated to pre-existing race and avoid the summer break are: 15-17 May, 29-31 May, 19-21 June, 10-12 July, 24-26 July, 11-13 September, 2-4 October, 16-18 October, 6-8 November and 20-22 November.

But any one of those 10 available slots would cause at least a triple-header in terms of consecutive races – and on some occasions even more.

How each date would affect the calendar

• 15-17 May: Four consecutive races (Netherlands, Spain, China, Monaco)
• 29-31 May: Four consecutive races (Monaco, China, Azerbaijan, Canada)
• 19-21 June: Five consecutive races (Azerbaijan, Canada, China, France, Austria)
• 10-12 July: Four consecutive races (France, Austria, China, Great Britain)
• 24-26 July: Three consecutive races (Great Britain, China, Hungary)
• 11-13 September: Five consecutive races (Belgium, Italy, China, Singapore, Russia)
• 2-4 October: Four consecutive races (Singapore, Russia, China, Japan)
• 16-18 October: Four consecutive races (Japan, China, United States, Mexico)
• 6-8 November: Four consecutive races (United States, Mexico, China, Brazil)
• 20-22 November: Three consecutive races (Brazil, China, Abu Dhabi)

On the basis of trying to limit the number of back-to-back race weekends, late July and late November appear to be the best dates to try and reschedule the Chinese Grand Prix.

But there are further complexities to work out given the travel involved on the F1 circuit, and using the dates suggested would involved teams having to transport all of their equipment needed for a race weekend from Europe to Asia and back again, or from South America to Asia and on to the Middle East.

The sport could look to shorten its summer break by one week and squeeze the Chinese Grand Prix in between the trips to Hungary and Belgium, but teams would almost certainly be against this as the holiday period is enforced and comes as a much-needed opportunity to recharge the batteries for the second half of the season.

On top of this all is the uncertainty surrounding whether it will be safe to return to China as it cannot be predicted how the coronavirus outbreak will behave over the next few months, leaving organisers facing a tough ask to stage it all this year.