"Others will be announced in the coming weeks," promises the championship promoter, Formula One, in a press release. Its objective of organizing between 15 and 18 races, against 22 initially, by the closing GP in Abu Dhabi in mid-December, is therefore maintained. "We have more and more confidence in our project to run until the end of 2020," assures the CEO of F1, Chase Carey. "This is good news, we are going in the right direction with more and more races", welcomes the main team of the Alfa Romeo Racing team, Frédéric Vasseur. "Step by step, we are building a beautiful championship". “We are starting to have a substantial timetable. It should be a great season, it's good for us, for the fans and for F1 in general. We have to push to add a few more races and we will be fine, ”encourages his Haas counterpart, Guenther Steiner.
Premiere at Mugello
The announcement fell when the first free practice of the second round of the championship began on the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg (Austria), still behind closed doors and following a strict sanitary protocol. If the Russian round in Sochi was scheduled on this date before the coronavirus pandemic, which forced to reshuffle the entire calendar, the Tuscan GP makes its entry into the World Championship, which has never passed through Mugello, at 35 kilometers from Florence. The circuit, much appreciated by pilots and which notably hosts a round of the MotoGP World Championship, belongs to Ferrari. La Scuderia will celebrate in September the 1000th race in its history in the premier category of motor sport. The Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships will also run at Mugello on the same dates. For F3, it will be the last meeting of the season, when F2 has yet to confirm its latest dates. Among the tracks planned for the rest of the F1 season, trips to Asia (China, Vietnam), to the Americas (Canada, United States, Mexico, Brazil), then to the Middle East (Bahrain, Abu Dhabi) are envisaged . Several other European circuits (Imola in Italy, Portimao in Portugal, Hockenheim in Germany) are negotiating to enter the calendar.
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Racing Point in front
On the track, by dominating free practice 1, the Mexican Sergio Pérez once again demonstrated the potential of his Racing Point, obtained largely inspired by the Mercedes titled by drivers and manufacturers last year. His time of 1 min 04 sec 867/1000 and that of the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), who is close behind him at 96/1000, must however be balanced against those of the Mercedes of the Finnish Valtteri Bottas, at 222/1000, and six-time British world champion Lewis Hamilton at 253/1000. The latter two have signed their times wearing medium tires, slower than the soft tires of Pérez and Verstappen. Briton Lando Norris (McLaren) was fined three places on the grid on Sunday for overtaking prohibited under the yellow flag. Free practice 2 started at 3:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT), for a final session under the sun before a Saturday that was expected to be particularly rainy. The inaugural round of 2020, won by Bottas ahead of Leclerc and Norris, was held in Austria, already on the Red Bull Ring, last week, more than three months late. The season should have started in mid-March in Melbourne, Australia, but the GP was canceled just before the first free practice session following the discovery of a case of coronavirus in the paddock.
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