Season 2020 races update/calendar/circuit news/contract update

Possibly we can capture/discuss all about circuits new and old etc being debated for 2020 like Silverstone etc.

Latest from BBC - https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/48892858

The 2020 Formula 1 season will start on 15 March with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The 25th race in Melbourne, which first hosted the sport in 1996, will mark the start of F1's 70th anniversary year.

F1 chairman Chase Carey said: "The Albert Park circuit is one of the most popular on the calendar. There is no better place to start the 2020 season."

The date, the same weekend as the start of last season, was announced without any further details of the calendar.

F1 has already said there will be two new races on the schedule next year, with the return of the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort and a new race in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

But four races are in doubt, with Britain, Germany, Mexico and Spain all out of contract at the end of this season.

At least two of those races are expected to lose their places on the calendar, keeping the total number of races next year at 21.

Spain and Germany are considered most vulnerable, and the Mexican government has expressed reservations about continuing with the race, but there are also doubts about the British event.

F1 and Silverstone had been close to agreeing a new contract but the track's owners, the British Racing Drivers' Club, are holding off on signing it after F1 admitted it wanted to hold a race in London.

Italy's contract also ends this year, but F1 announced in April that it had reached an "agreement in principle" for a new deal through 2024. That contract has not yet been confirmed.

There is also confusion surrounding the future of the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The country's President Jair Bolsonaro has said the race will move to a new track in Rio de Janeiro from next year.

But Sao Paulo's Interlagos circuit still has a year left on its contract, and there is widespread scepticism within F1 about the event in Rio. Several sources have told BBC Sport that "it's not going to happen".

 

Always an easy fun drive to Hockenheim-Ring. We stayed in Heidelberg if we stay all weekend and not journey home South. I hope Mercedes can continue the generosity.

 

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/27216290/australian-gp-remain-f1-2025

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144875/uralkali-force-india-takeover-case-set-for-late-20

The legal case between Russian chemical company Uralkali and the Force India Formula 1 administrators is set to go to trial in late 2020.

Last summer Uralkali, led by Dmitry Mazepin, was one of the failed bidders that attempted to buy the struggling Force India team from administrators FRP Advisory LLP.

It believes it made a substantially higher bid than the consortium led by Lawrence Stroll, which won the race to buy the team as a going concern - but then subsequently saved it by acquiring the assets and setting up a new company to run the renamed Racing Point operation.

Uralkali began action against Geoff Rowley and Jason Baker of FRP Advisory last September. The timing of a trial was agreed on Wednesday in a case management conference, an early procedural step.

A statement from Uralkali said: "During this hearing the court considered case management issues and settled the timetable for further steps up to trial, which was scheduled to take place between October and December 2020.

"Prior to trial, the parties to the proceedings will be required to disclose certain correspondence and other documents relating to the bidding process, and will exchange witness evidence in April 2020.

"Earlier in December 2018, two US district courts decided to compel members of the Racing Point consortium residing in [the] US to provide documents and testimony, which may assist in support of Uralkali's claim in the High Court in London."

FRP Advisory remains adamant that it did nothing incorrect. In a statement issued to Autosport it noted: "We fulfilled our statutory duties as administrators throughout this process and ultimately achieved a very successful outcome for all stakeholders.

"We remain fully confident that this baseless legal action will be dismissed."

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Uralkali said its case is based upon three areas of concern, namely, "failure by the administrators to determine the highest bid in the process - from Uralkali - as successful", "misrepresentations and lack of transparency in the process run by the administrators", and a "flawed sales process which failed to achieve the maximisation of sale proceeds for creditors, shareholders and other stakeholders".

The company said it made "an extremely generous offer to acquire the company's business, assets and goodwill, which included a cash consideration of between £101.5m and £122m, depending on the specific structure of other bids".

It added: "Despite Uralkali's generous offer, which we believe was the best bid on the table, the administrators chose to enter into an exclusivity arrangement with a lower bidder and subsequently refused to re-engage with Uralkali or any other bidders.

"Due to Uralkali's concerns as to the bidding process, Uralkali had no option but to launch these proceedings and seek substantial damages. Uralkali intends to continue vigorous pursuit of its claims against the administrator in the High Court in London."

The wider significance of a higher bid is that in theory it could have made more funds available to pay interested parties such as the Indian banks that had a claim on the assets of former Force India owner Vijay Mallya.

Uralkali noted: "The company estimates that, after repayment of all valid claims of creditors and administrator's costs (based on information from the administrators) its proposal would have resulted in more than £40million being available to Force India's shareholders (ie Orange India Holdings Sarl) and, consequently, further used as a source of repayment of any stakeholder claims."

Mazepin's son Nikita was a Force India test driver from 2016-18, before joining Mercedes this season.

 

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/27220996/vietnam-grand-prix-releases-3d-images-new-f1-circuit

The organisers of the Vietnam Grand Prix have released the first images of how the circuit will look ahead of the first Formula One race there next year.

The race will be held around the country's capital city of Hanoi on a 5.565km street circuit featuring purpose-built sections and a newly constructed pit and paddock complex. Work on the race circuit started earlier this year.

Although a date has not been confirmed yet, tickets went on sale earlier this month and it is understood the race will be scheduled at some point in April, although F1 is yet to finalise the details of the 2020 calendar.

While the circuit has released a virtual lap of the track, it has gone further this week and shown what the planned pit facilities and grandstands should look like.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144951/australian-gp-revives-track-change-possibility

Australian Grand Prix bosses will reconsider altering the Albert Park circuit now that a revised deal has been reached with Formula 1.

The race in Melbourne will remain on the calendar until at least 2025 after a new two-year extension to its current contract was signed earlier this month.

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation will now reconsider making changes to the circuit - with both track resurfacing and layout changes on the agenda - reviving a discussion that began in 2017.

Previously, there was talk that the Australian GP venue could remove its fast left-to-right Turn 11/12 complex and replace it with a slower corner to boost overtaking.

"It's important to get a return on investment in anything you do, and the ability to have that extra two years provides more certainty to do a couple of things," AGPC CEO Andrew Westacott said.

"One [is] to look at the resurfacing. The drivers at the moment haven't said that it's needed. They wax and wane. Sometimes it's the most imperative thing that they want to do, and other times they like the character of a street circuit.

"The other thing that it does, it allows us to have a look at the evolution of the track and look at what tweaks we can make given the physical limitations of a lake and a sports stadium and a pit building and other things.

"We'll have a look at the evolution of the design and layout in particular areas to see whether we can tweak it."

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Westacott hinted that the Australian GP will continue to open the F1 season throughout its contract.

"It's essentially part of the deal," he said. "I won't go into individual wording in the contract, because we don't talk about the detail of the contract.

"But you heard Chase Carey come out and say the season essentially starts in Melbourne, it finishes in Abu Dhabi, you've got Monaco, which has a place in the middle.

"Now securing great events like Silverstone, you get the real cornerstones and the big components of a Formula 1 season, whether it's 20, 21, or 22 races.

"And everything fits in around those starting points and finishing points."

The 25th running of the race in Melbourne will take place on March 15 next year.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144993/spanish-gp-could-get-2020-calendar-reprieve

The Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix could be set for a surprise 2020 reprieve, with sources revealing Barcelona officials are in advanced talks about a new deal.

The race is one of five events whose contracts ran out this year, and there was a growing belief that it would lose its slot.

F1 owners Liberty Media have been clear that the calendar would likely remain at 21 races next season and the addition of new grands prix in Holland and Vietnam meant two current races would lose out.

With Italian officials having said earlier this year that they had sorted financial matters with F1, and Britain having announced a new deal, it was thought that Mexico would beat Spain and Germany to taking the final available slot.

While the situation did not look positive for Spain, it is understood that discussions have moved on behind the scenes and a plan is being put in place for a single-year extension.

This would then give track chiefs extra breathing space to try to negotiate a longer term contract from 2021, which is especially important considering uncertainty over the government that may not be resolved until later this year.

To help move things forward, it is understood the government has offered a guarantee of the race hosting fee as a short term measure.

Should the talks get across the line and the 2020 deal signed, then the next issue to sort will be when the race slots into the calendar.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/145106/mercedes-wont-intervene-to-keep-german-gp-for-20

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff says the manufacturer will not intervene to try to keep the German Grand Prix on the calendar for 2020.

This year's race was saved after an informal meeting between F1 bosses Chase Carey and Sean Bratches and Mercedes' management last season led to an influx of funding and title sponsorship of the event.

Hockenheim subsequently signed a one-year deal with an option for 2020, but F1 looks unlikely to take this up because the race is one of the less lucrative in terms of the hosting fee.

With the Vietnam and Dutch GPs coming in, and Spain now looking more likely to be retained, the 2020 calendar could feature 22 races even without Germany.

"[The] deal came up pretty spontaneously," said Wolff.

"We had a meeting on Sunday morning with Chase and Sean, and they said, 'Would you be able to help us [in] bridging the gap?'

"And in half an hour we bartered out a deal in order to make the German GP happen.

"But this is not something which we are in a position to continue. Also because I believe that we shouldn't really be interfering in the business of Liberty and F1 - it is up to them to decide which tracks are on or off."

 

Tough opinion of Hockenheim. Certainly I can agree with some of this - https://www.autosport.com/f1/feature/9359/why-f1-wouldnt-miss-hockenheim

There's much to love about visiting the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

The beautiful neighbouring town of Speyer, with its Romanesque cathedral and al fresco dining; Mannheim, the starting point and destination of the Bertha Benz Memorial Route, the world's first automobile road trip; and Heidelberg, with its evocative gothic castle and vibrant Altstadt.

The Hockenheimring itself is not one of them.

Back when the circuit was Fortress Schumacher, and every grandstand was heaving beneath the weight of a capacity crowd wearing replica Deutsche Vermoegensberatung baseball caps, this was a veritable crucible of Formula 1 fandom. Few events could match the German Grand Prix for atmosphere, for the sheer passion of the crowd.

And yet off they drifted once Schumi had departed the scene; last year the attendance on race day was 71,000, almost half that of 20 years ago.

It's now difficult to tell whether Germany has fallen out of love with F1, or vice versa.

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Last weekend, the crowds were sparse on qualifying day, less so on race day, but still a dispiriting shadow of times past, and numbers were boosted by the Dutch Army of Verstappen fans. In the early '00s it would have been unthinkable to have entire stands populated by fans cheering on someone else.

These days the circuit doesn't turn a profit on F1 - or even its round of the DTM. The only sell-outs are musical events.

Yes, Ed Sheeran is a bigger draw than Sebastian Vettel.

To visit Hockenheim these days is to plough through a cloying miasma of moribundity, an enervating air of can't-be-arsed-ness
As it stands, the German Grand Prix is off for next year. Liberty has an option that it hasn't taken up yet, and Mercedes is unwilling to rummage for change in the corporate purse, as it did last year in order to celebrate its 125th anniversary in Germany last weekend.

Even German media colleagues make a weary noise, like air escaping slowly from a punctured tyre, when the topic of Hockenheim and its future as an F1 venue is broached, such is the lack of enthusiasm for the grand prix and the general atmosphere of decrepitude that prevails at this venue.

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To visit Hockenheim these days is to plough through a cloying miasma of moribundity, an enervating air of can't-be-arsed-ness, as you bump and bang your way in on the shuttle bus, past the access tunnel that can't be used (it floods) and the half-built Porsche Experience Centre, to be deposited outside the paddock gates for a disobliging day in and around the decomposing buildings (or, in the case of the media centre, a clapped-out shed serviced by a pair of stinky portaloos) that lie within.

It's almost impossible to escape the pervasive sense of neglect. When the indefatigable Edd Straw tried to venture trackside he was left to loiter fruitlessly at a locked gate that used to be permanently attended.

Readers who follow F1 on social media will have seen the video Daniel Ricciardo posted of himself and half the grid trapped in the lift on the way to the drivers' briefing. It was an amusing but illustrative vignette of the general frustration that Hockenheim visits upon anybody who has to work there.

I travelled in this accursed contraption myself, for the press conferences were also held on the fourth floor of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Centre.

Following the drivers' briefing debacle the maximum number of passengers on each journey was strictly prescribed, and rigidly enforced by an attendant whose task it was to bark at any poor sap hoping there was room for one more.

Press conferences being busy affairs, and the lift going about its function as if powered by a handful of dung beetles on a treadmill, this led to some tense scenes in the lobby on the ground floor as hacks and photographers jockeyed for position.

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To pull press conference duty, then, was to witness the tawdry spectacle of queuing etiquette and good manners undergoing savage defenestration. Hockenheim made beasts of us all.

This is not to wave the card of journalistic self-indulgence and entitlement. Autosport scribes don't expect to be conveyed into the circuit precincts upon a palanquin and fed oysters on a silver platter with crushed ice and seaweed trimmings.

The wise heads now running Silverstone put time, effort and money into making the place less crap
It's just that for pretty much everyone in the Formula 1 orbit - particularly for the team mechanics who must toil in ageing garages and attend to their toilet in grotty cinder-block oubliettes - this is a dispiriting place in which to work.

A bit like Silverstone 10 or 15 years ago, in fact, when the home of the British Grand Prix was presided over by blazered buffoons who despised what they referred to as "effwun", as if any grand prix since the halcyon days of Raymond Sommer was not worth the name.

Vettel put a brave face on it, saying on race day: "I think the German crowd we saw today and yesterday is very passionate, a lot of people turning up.

"I think we have grands prix that we just mustn't lose such as Monza, such as the race at Silverstone in the UK.

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"Germany and Spain have a long history of racing so it would be a shame to lose those and instead go to a place where they pay millions for the race to turn up but nobody is sitting in the grandstand.

"For us as drivers it's dull, so I think we rather enjoy here, close to the Netherlands with a lot of Dutch people coming."

For all that he may have confused some of the orange shirts with red ones, Vettel was right to acknowledge the contribution the crowd makes to the atmosphere and success of a grand prix.

Sporting events shouldn't take place in sterile, hermetically sealed cages.

But if value for money is poor, or if the race-day experience isn't up to scratch, or if the personalities within the sport gain insufficient traction with the general public, crowd figures will decline.

Some say the migration of F1 away from free-to-air TV platforms is stifling interest, and certainly it's having a negative pressure on viewing figures.

Equally, though, a grand prix should be a fantastic experience. Silverstone sold out this year regardless of Sky Sports F1's annexation of the UK TV rights.

To some extent that's a reflection of Lewis Hamilton's status and popularity, but it's also partly a factor of the wise heads now running Silverstone putting time, effort and money into making the place less crap.

At Hockenheim, supplies of those three key resources seem to have sputtered out.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/145133/government-approval-edges-spanish-gp-closer-to-deal

The Spanish Grand Prix is set to remain on the 2020 Formula 1 calendar after the Catalan government approved a plan for a one-year extension of the Barcelona circuit's contract.

The event's future has been in doubt for several months as it had thus far failed to secure a new deal with the Formula 1 organisation.

Barcelona is one of four races whose contract expires at the end of the current season, and the circuit was believed to be in a fight to remain on the calendar with Germany and Mexico.

However, the Catalan government on Thursday approved a plan for the extension of the current contract for 2020, saying this means Barcelona will host its 30th Spanish Grand Prix next year.

"The executive council has today authorised the Circuits de Catalunya, SL society to sign a one-year extension of the contract for the organisation of the F1 Spanish Grand Prix for the year 2020 with the Formula One World Championship Limited company," said the Govern de la Generalitat de Catalunya in a statement.

 

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/27332555/f1-talks-saudi-arabia-grand-prix

 

The Mexican Grand Prix organiser has announced the race will remain on the Formula 1 calendar beyond the end of its current contract, which runs out after this year's event.

Along with the British, Spanish, Italian and German Grands Prix, the Mexico race was one of five Grands Prix that came up for contract renewal this year, and whose promoter has been in negotiation with the F1 organisation.

The withdrawal of significant public funding meant that the race's future was under serious threat, despite the huge crowds it has attracted since returning to the calendar in 2015 - thanks largely to the presence of Sergio Perez.

An official announcement will be made at the mayor's office on Thursday, which will coincide with Liberty's release of its quarterly financial results.

Sources suggest the deal is for three years, rather than the five of the existing contract.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/145279/mexico-organiser-says-new-deal-with-f1-agreed

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/145308/carey-f1-is-making-steps-forward-for-miami-race

Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey says he is "making steps" forward in ongoing talks over a future Miami Grand Prix.

F1 had originally wanted the race to take place around the waterfront and harbour area of Miami, and it had put extensive efforts into designing a circuit and gaining support from the relevant authorities.

But complications regarding permissions and opposition from residents led to promoter RSE Ventures switching focus to the land around the Hard Rock American Football stadium.

The switch was made because RSE owns the stadium and there is expected to be less opposition and red tape to be dealt with.

Carey stressed that building F1's profile in the United States through an extra race in Miami or Las Vegas remains a priority.

"We've been quite public about our goals to pursue the opportunity in the US," he said in a call with Wall Street analysts.

"Actually our television audience has grown well this year.

"When you look at digital, it has actually been a positive surprise, because we weren't doing anything in digital until we started to measure the engagement we had in the US.

"There are a lot more fans here than people believe there are, so I think we're excited about those opportunities.

"We've talked about adding races in what we call 'destination cities' like Las Vegas or Miami.

 

Carey is going to press circuit organizers for more fee's. That is not the answer to F1 problems. So load the calendar and dump races that will not abide with Liberty demands. The same model from Bernie and we lose good circuits to cheap 'street' circuits. Useless management. He fails to see what will break F1 in the longer term - the makers / road car applicability and industry change. ICE days are numbered. Its not circuits not paying enough........

https://www.planetf1.com/news/carey-2020-calendar-to-be-announced-in-a-few-weeks/

 

Possibly a 'hero' in a US team is as much needed as well.