03/07/2020
NEWS STORY
While the next eight races and ten weeks are accounted for, there is still no clear sign what happens after.
Though there is talk of a triple-header in Italy, it is unclear if either the United States or Mexican rounds will take place. Bahrain and Abu Dhabi are a certainty, while it is anticipated that the Vietnam and China Grands Prix are on the verge of being given the green light.
Speaking to the official F1 website, Chase Carey says the next "chunk" of races will "hopefully" be announced in the "coming weeks".
"I think in the next few weeks we will look to land, certainly at least another chunk of the calendar," he said, "ideally we'd like to land the whole second half of the calendar.
"There are a number of races we already know will be on the calendar," he continued. "I don't want to get into piecemeal addressing it, I'd like to address it holistically. But to lock the dates in we really need to figure out what other races will be on it.
"We've said 15-18 races and we still feel comfortable with that as a target," he added. "Right now we have a number of races we have essentially agreed with, we just haven't firmed the date up. And a number of places we are moving forward with, trying to firm a date up. We have a few that are much more up in the air based in circumstances in that country."
Ironically, at a time the sport had been hoping to add races in its own American back yard, it is the United States and Mexican events that look to be the most unlikely, along with Brazil.
"When you look at the US, Mexico and Brazil, clearly right now they seem to be having a higher incidence of infections than other places," he said. "So we're trying to get guidance from these places on what's possible, what we can do.
"Really we need to know, can we race in a location? Will there be restrictions on our ability to get in and out a location in a functioning way? And to some degree we're trying to address the fan question. We'd like to have fans at our races. It's a possibility.
"One of the challenges of looking at a calendar in November is November is four months away. You're less than four months into the virus, so trying to look forward to where you'll be in November I understand is hard for everybody. But ultimately we need to plan ahead. So there's a point in time when we have to just put a stake in the ground and make decisions on what we know. I think that's soon."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Spielberg, here.