F1 | Azerbaijan Grand Prix Postponed

[Paul Jeffrey]

Another one bites the dust... today the FIA have confirmed the proposed Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been postponed.

Expected to be the new opening round of the rescheduled Formula One season this June 5th - 7th, today (March 23rd) Formula One and the event organisers have confirmed they have decided to postpone the race around the streets of Baku City due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

With Australia, Bahrain, Vietnam, China, Netherlands, Spain and Monaco already confirmed as either postponed or cancelled, the latest announcement comes as yet another blow for the hopes of retaining a halfway decent calendar of Grand Prix events this year.

With the unprecedented health situation showing little sign of slowing down around the world, it remains to be seen if order will be restored in time to get the action back underway at the Canadian Grand Prix on June 14th.

The statement in full:

Baku City Circuit (BCC) has today taken the decision to postpone the FORMULA 1 AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX 2020 due to take place on June 5th – 7th.​

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The postponement was agreed upon after extensive discussions with Formula 1 as well as the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and the Government of the Azerbaijan Republic. This comes as a direct result of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and has been based entirely on the expert guidance provided to us by the relevant authorities.​

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In coming to this conclusion, BCC’s primary concern throughout has been the health and well-being of the Azerbaijani people as well as all visiting F1 fans, staff and championship participants.​

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BCC shares its fans disappointment at not being able to experience the pinnacle of motorsport race through the streets of Baku this June. To that end, we will continue to work closely with Formula 1, the FIA and the Government of the Azerbaijan Republic to monitor the situation with a view to announcing a new race date later in the 2020 season.​

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All tickets for the FORMULA 1 AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX 2020 will continue to be valid, without any additional formality. As soon as the new date of the Grand Prix is confirmed, all spectators will be informed accordingly about the available options, both for those who have purchased their tickets through the Baku City Circuit’s website (www.bakucitycircuit.com) and through other channels.​

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The thoughts of everyone at Baku City Circuit during this challenging and unprecedented situation go out to all those directly and indirectly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.​

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We wish to thank all our supporters, customers and partners for your understanding and look forward to welcoming you back to Baku later in the year for more unpredictable, thrilling racing action at the Home of the Street Fighters.​

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In the meantime, we ask you to stay safe and stay at home if you can.​

Original Source: Formula One

Got questions or want to talk with your fellow community members about the sport? Head over to the Formula One sub forum here at RaceDepartment and start up a thread!

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

If we are back to normal before June (which I doubt btw), the Canadian Grand Prix as season opener will be awesome!

 

[Ricoow]

If we are back to normal before June (which I doubt btw), the Canadian Grand Prix as season opener will be awesome!

Agreed, Canada somehow always surprises! However very afraid of further postponements.

 

[eg01st]

Just cancel the whole thing already, what's the point of half-assed season?

 

[Sasha Jednak]

I guess it's all about tyres, since they need few weeks to get them ready and move them to race location. They will probably wait until deadline for tyres for each race and then cancel/postpone it.

 

[FinFan]

Christian Drosten, virologist at the Charitè in Berlin / Germany said in an interview concerning Soccer he doesn't believe we could fill a stadium with people for the foreseeable time.
"Not going to happen until this time next year. We have to do without the things we like, but are not relevant, for quite some time"

I think this applies for F1 as well. While I think it could be possible to have races without spectators in a couple of months if things go well the travel restrictions negate that already. With closed borders everywhere how can they get in country ?

 

[ears]

Instead of listing all the stuff that isn't happening, why not invest the time in highlighting the eSports that are out there that we can watch?

In these times of hardship, isolation and boredom, it might really help people to know there is SOME entertainment out there. Some of the broadcasts have been of quite high quality.

I did have a thread trying to track it, but it got moved to a hidden away forum.

List of eSports racing events to watch

There are a few really interesting eSports events popping up and they're easy to miss so I thought I'd create a thread where people who spot stuff can post. This weekend, the weekend of the Bahrain GP we have so far the official F1 event, using their game. Initial details here...

www.racedepartment.com

 

[PegaMixel]

eSports esports

ftfy

 

[ears]

eSports esports

ftfy

From

Esports - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Esports (also known as electronic sports, e-sports, or eSports)

 

[Chris]

Just can the entire season and try again next year. COVID-19 isn't going to settle down until well after August.

 

[ears]

Yeah, it does feel like 'sporting event x has been postponed' is no longer news.

We're now at a 'just let me know when it starts again' stage.

 

[BrainsBush]

Canadian Athletes team already (had to) withdrew themselves from the Olympic games in Japan. Hopefully completely wrong assumption of me but I guess therefor Canada GP is also at high risk?

 

[NDG]

If you look at the situation on all the places in calendar, you can only pick a few which are "currently" still doable. And who knows what's the situation by the time...

Gotta feel the pain for Ferrari though, Italy's been hit hard. I hope then can do a few races just to recoup some investments, but no championship points. I mean F1 and FIA.

The sim racing scene's been good on public servers, but the youtube show of popular sim celebs are less than meh. Never again. Maybe I'm old but I didn't enjoy the punts and laughs of those guys. Lando's twitch stream was full of fake laughs that I can't stand. Jimmy put up a few good races but why is he the only one taking it seriously. Or so it seems to me... F1 streams are not the best quality too. Some less known broadcasters do a helluva lot better than them.

 

[michelforest]

If we are back to normal before June (which I doubt btw), the Canadian Grand Prix as season opener will be awesome!

Like you, I doubt the season will start in June. But I agree: Montreal would be a great opener: it is, in many ways, a race that is similar to Melbourne. It's in a park and it's right next to the city's center.

Sadly, I don't think it will happen...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

There will be no F1 racing this year. Everybody sees that except the F1 organization.

As a matter of fact i dont think there will be any racing next year either. This virus isn't going away unless we have all been through it or we have been vaccinated.

No vaccine expected until September 2021 right?

 

[Thang Nguyen]

is the 2020 season over?

 

[Andrew Harper]

There will be no F1 racing this year. Everybody sees that except the F1 organization.

As a matter of fact i don't think there will be any racing next year either. This virus isn't going away unless we have all been through it or we have been vaccinated.

No vaccine expected until September 2021 right?

Yes I agree, I think we'll get to a point where the whole season will be canned. I have a feeling the teams will start to protest in the first instance and then one by one they will drop out. A bit like the situation at Mebourne, the teams started to protest and then the drivers. Liberty Media couldn't run the race without a full grid.

From a contractual point of view though it must be a nightmare. Not just for the circuits but also for the teams. The sponsors for example are paying for their products to be featured and that's not happening.

I hate to say it but I would imagine there must be a real risk of us losing a team or two over all of this.

Yes I think that COVID-19 will be with is for a few years at least. It will take that long for the strain of that virus to get to a point where it only effects a certain number of people each month, rather than huge disaster we have now. My heart goes out to all those in Italy, they are having a terrible time and pray that they start to recover very soon.

A vaccine will most likely take about a year, incredibly scientists have been working together and managed to get to stage one of finding a vaccine that would normally take years. So they are doing an incredible job. It's now just testing it and making sure that firstly it works and secondly it will be safe.

Although I agree that F1 2019 isn't a true sim, lets get together, create the 2019 grid in the 2020 liveries and get those drivers (or their extra drivers like Ferrari Academy) racing online like at the weekend. Yes it didn't work very well on that occasion but the racing in places was great fun. Maybe do things that you could never do in real life, reverse grids for example, rolling starts, etc.

I'm still hoping for a large grid ACC streamed race. Maybe we'll get that from the GT3 teams

Stay safe everyone, stay indoors and avoid close contact with people wherever possible. We'll beat this

 

[MarkR]

@ears I agree the attempts at esports events are good to see but they've really got to get better at hosting the races - especially the official F1 esports race on F1 2019. I see they intend to hold an official esports race for each GP to come so it is on topic for this thread too. Last night, that was a cringe-worthy watch on mainstream TV too with all the technical failures, half-length race and then AI cars driving half the race for some drivers like Lando. There was also some great sarcasm for the commentators and pundits with cars taking lines miles off track and through gravel "lots of grip out there isn't there!"

Lando's own stream (100k watching at some points) was hilarious with his calls to other F1 drivers etc when his game crashed in quail and they forgot to invite him back into the session.

Only my thoughts but I suspect your thread got moved as RD have their own big push towards esports going on, I know nothing for certain, just looks that way to me as there is no coverage of the current event in news articles etc when previously they'd have been all over some of the high profile events.

I remain to be convinced by any of the racing game esports I've seen so far! I guess it depends how much people like to watch other people playing video games (and playing them badly in way too much of the F1 stream last night).

 

[Antony Snook]

Don't like Azerbejan or street circuits. Places like Montreal and Melbourne are ok as there is needed space of the edge of the track. I guess Azerbejan is like Monaco, Pretey to look at but a pain to race on. But with the global economy the way it is it makes more scence financially. A permanent track has a lot of maintenance fees. And most F1 tracks hold 1 event per year and are not in use the rest of the racing season

 

[Antony Snook]

is the 2020 season over?

1/3rd to 1/2 of it at least.