Formula 1 2020: One more race, Hockenheimring flies out

At the Hockenheimring next year is unlikely to take place any Formula 1 race. As the magazine "Auto, Motor and Sport" reports, the teams are said to have agreed to increase the race calendar in 2020 to 22 races. New are the tracks in Hanoi (Vietnam) and Zandvoort (Netherlands), but there is only one event left in the race in Germany. In Zandvoort, the European season is set to begin on 3 May.

The operators of the Hockenheimring officially do not know anything about Formula 1 racing. The current bargaining status is that nothing is "finally decided", said the future Managing Director Jorn Teske. But "if that were the case, it would not surprise us," said the designated successor to Georg Seiler, the head of the Hockenheimring for many years.

Actually, the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona was considered a strike candidate, but the racing teams agreed to stay for extra revenue. Now the track operators in Barcelona have to agree with rights holder Liberty Media on an inaugural fee, then nothing stands in the way of the reformed calendar. The approval of the World Council of Motorsport World Federation Fia in September is considered safe.

The 2020 season traditionally starts with the race in Australia on 15 March. A week later Bahrain races, these consecutive race weekends are a big challenge for the teams and their employees because of the time pressure.

Overall, there will be eight in the coming year of these so-called back-to-back races. Particularly noteworthy is the merger of the races in Baku and Montréal - the two cities are almost 9000 kilometers apart, the time difference is eight hours.

This is how the Formula 1 calendar should look in the coming year:

Preliminary Formula 1 calendar of the 2020 season