Global Pandemic Unexpectedly Made F1 Calendar More Exciting Than Ever | Dhimas’s Opinion
COVID-19 global pandemic hit F1 pretty hard at the beginning of this season. 13 March 2020 was the day we supposed to saw all the new Formula One cars hit the track for the first practice session of the season. But instead, Chase Carey and the local organizers held a press conference to announce that the entire race weekend was canceled after the first case of COVID-19 was found in the paddock.
Along the way, we got a series of race cancellation from March until May. All races from Melbourne up until Austria was either postponed or canceled. These race cancellations made both FIA and F1 have to rearrange the calendar to have a minimum of 8 races to have a proper and legal world championship. The ongoing pandemic situations made logistic challenges multiple times harder than before. Not only parts and tools that have to be transported between race tracks but also border restrictions for the team, organizer, and media personnel made it even harder. Racing only in Europe seems to be the only feasible option for F1 in this situation as all teams based in Europe.
Looking at the original calendar, F1 is supposed to race in 10 different tracks across Europe. But, with Zandvoort, Paul Ricard, and Monaco opted for cancellation, we only have 7 race tracks available in Europe. It’s not enough for the minimum number of races required for an FIA world championship to be held. The teams also wanted to race in significantly more than 8 events to meet their respective sponsors’ and contract’s demands.
This unprecedented situation made F1 do multiple triple headers to ensure we have a good number of races this season. We are having a couple of back to back races in Red Bull Ring and Silverstone. What I am very excited about is that we will also race in race tracks that were not in the original calendar. Some of them are returning tracks, and the others will hold their first-ever Formula 1 race.
In this article, I will tell you about those new circuits added to the calendar.
Hello Mugello
This track is famous as the venue of the annual MotoGP Italian Grand Prix. Mugello never held a Formula 1 race before, but it is not strange to Formula 1 cars either as this circuit, in fact, is owned by Scuderia Ferrari. The Prancing Horse team used this track a lot in the early 2000-s in which they dominated the field to develop their car and testing setups for the races.
This track features a very long straight into a medium hairpin turn 1, which will undoubtedly become an overtaking spot. The next part is a swift section of the circuit where drivers will face a sweeping medium speed left and right corners without much braking and then going on a bit of straight track before a dab of brake into turn 4 and 5. After that, the will face a high-speed downhill corner from Casanova (Turn 6) to Scarperia (Turn 10), which I believe will extract a massive amount of lateral g-force and challenging each drivers’ fitness to the limit. The last sector featured a medium speed hairpin into a fast chicane and ended in a fast hairpin leading to the circuit’s main straight.
Racing in Mugello will test the aerodynamic capabilities of current generation F1 cars to handle most of its high-speed corners. It will be a massive test for each driver’s fitness to conquer enormous g-forces and immense heat in the middle of summer.
The inherent quality of racing in Mugello is currently unknown for F1. There are some doubts that Mugello won’t be suited for current-generation cars to race each other as those corners will punish the following cars with dirty air. I think it will be a bit dull on Sunday, but on Saturday, it will be fascinating to watch as all drivers will try to extract the limit of their cars and their own physical strength.
Coming back to Nürburgring
Formula One will be racing again in Nürburgring after the last time out in 2013. This new layout of Nürburgring, GP-Strecke, was completed in 1984 after the old legendary layout, Nordschleife, was abandoned by F1 after Niki Lauda’s infamous accident that nearly took his life and gave him the permanent burnt scar on his face in 1976.
Despite being a newly designed circuit, many drivers liked this track and said that it has some beautiful old-school race track characteristics. The first corner is quite challenging. Drivers will be faced with a downhill hairpin with slight turning at the braking point. Another exciting part is Michael Schumacher-S, a fast uphill chicane followed by a 90 degree left turn, a decent place for overtaking.
The most notable race in this layout was European Grand Prix 2007. It was a very chaotic race hit by torrential rain. The race started on dry conditions and expected to be raining in a couple of laps. The storm struck heavy and almost immediately turned the first turn into a river after a couple of laps. On lap 3, remarkably, 6 drivers including, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg, Scott Speed, and Vitantonio Liuzzi, were aquaplaning and sent into the gravel trap out of turn 1. This automatically prompted a safety car, and the race was red-flagged. The restart was memorable because it was Marcus Winkelhock who led the pack in his Spyker on his debut after starting last, becoming the only driver to date to both starts last and first on the grid in the same Grand Prix.
Let’s go Portimao
From all the new and returning race tracks, this is the one that I am most excited about. The first time I heard about this track was when The Grand Tour did a segment for their first episode ever for a showdown between “The Holy Trinity of Hypercars.”
This track will hold their first-ever Formula One race. F1 goes to this track for a post-season test in 2008 when most of the teams tested their own version of the front wing for then-upcoming regulation changes in 2009. The last time Portugal held a Grand Prix was in 1996 at Estoril. This opportunity could be the one that they want to look further to conduct a proper F1 race in the future.
The elevation changes in this track are insane. The main straight is like a mountain. It’s a quite steep uphill before the starting grids and pitlane area, and they go downhill just after the start-finish line into turn 1. There is a very challenging left-hander uphill blind corner on turn 5. Then they go into a banking hairpin on turn 6. Out of banked turn 9, they will immediately go uphill and downhill into an almost cave-like turn 10. A similar thing will happen after turn 11 into turn 12. It really is literally “up and down, side to side, like a rollercoaster.”
Take a look at this lap around Algarve with a virtual F1 car on theAssetto Corsa game, and you will see how crazy this track is.
This will be an immense challenge for drivers’ fitness. I could imagine myself riding that race track without vomiting afterward, honestly.
Nostalgia in Imola
Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari is no stranger to Formula 1. This legendary track held its latest Formula 1 race in 2006, which Michael Schumacher won in his final season for Ferrari. In Imola, the darkest days in F1’s history took place in 1994 when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger lost their lives on that weekend. The track doesn’t change that much since then except for a few tweaks for safety reinforcement.
Tamburello is the legendary left-hander corner close to a wall where it used to be taken flat out before a chicane added as a safety feature after Senna’s death on that very corner. Acque Minerali is a double right-hander with an exit from turn 10 going uphill and slightly left into the next chicane called Variante Alta. After that, we go downhill into a double left corner of Rivazza and then going flat out to the start-finish line.
In the same case as Mugello, I don’t expect a lot of action on Sunday, but instead, we will have an exciting Saturday on Qualifying.
During these past years, I was one of many who imagine how will F1 race in Imola and Nurburgring again or trying a new challenge in Mugello and Portimao. I will be happy to watch all those races even if it is a boring one because eventually, I can see how those tracks will cope with current F1 cars, and the truth will be presented whether those tracks suited for F1 or not. At the end of the day, it will be a good one for F1, drivers, and promoters during these unprecedented times to reevaluate the potential for those 4 race tracks to held scheduled races for the upcoming seasons. I do indeed hope a few of them will be back for 2021 onwards.
