If there is any year that Formula 1 racing will be remembered in the annuals of history, 2020 will be that year.
2020 had a familiar world champion and constructor’s winner in Formula 1, but the year offered a lot more–the first pandemic in over a century nearly ruined the racing season. The craziness began in mid-March in Melbourne, Australia, which had cloudy weather and something else.
Friday practice was interrupted by a meeting at the front of the facility with Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey, who announced that one of the staff members of the McLaren F1 Team contacted the disease. The race that weekend was then canceled.
That decision set off a wave of cancellations in China, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Monaco, France, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone suggested the entire season be canceled.
But Carey decided that the best option would be to get as many races in as possible. It was a way to save the season. COVID-19 testing followed for team members, journalists, camera operators, and others on site. Team factories, which were shut down for at least three months, opened again and, by July, the season began strangely in Austria with two races scheduled there in two weekends.
Great Britain also hosted a doubleheader, and Italy hosted three races at Monza, Imola, and Mugello. Other newer races were scheduled to complete the 17-race season. They included Nurburgring in Germany, Portimao in Portugal, and the Istanbul track in Turkey. Bahrain, which is normally run at the beginning of the season, was pushed to the end of the season. Bahrain hosted two races at different tracks. The finale in Abu Dhabi was run as scheduled to conclude the season.
But the reconfigured 2020 season also had consequences. With racing ending in the middle of December, teams now have fewer than one-hundred days to get ready for the 2021 year, which (if all goes well) will begin in Australia in the middle of March.
By then, hopefully, drivers and teams will have escaped the virus. In 2020, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was out for two races, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton missed one race.
Hamilton dominated the season, winning 11 of the 17 races, while teammate Valtteri Bottas took two races in Austria and Russia. Max Verstappen won the second British race and the finale in Abu Dhabi. But the best wins of the year were by two drivers that had never won a race in their careers. Pierre Gasly took a win for Alpha Tauri in Italy, and Perez took the Sakir Grand Prix–his first win ever after ten years of driving.
With 2020 behind us, what’s in store for 2021?
First, two teams will race in different colors. Renault will lose Yellow and Black in favor of Red, White, and Blue. The reason is that it will adopt the French tricolor of Alpine, which is a Renault subsidiary. The Pink color at Racing Point will transfer to the British racing Green of Aston Martin.
Driver’s seats will move around too. Sebastian Vettel heads from Ferrari to Aston Martin. Carlos Sainz Jr. will replace Vettel at Ferrari from McLaren. Daniel Ricciardo will take over for Sainz Jr. at McLaren from Renault. And Fernando Alonso, who won the 24 Hours of Lemans twice and the WEC world title once, will have a seat with the new Alpine team after being away from F1 for the past two seasons.
In other moves, Alpha Tauri will release Dani Kvyat and replace him with Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda. In another Japanese link, Honda (AT’s engines) will depart F1 at the end of 2021. Romaine Grosjean and Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen will leave F1 altogether. Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher (Michael’s son) and Russian rabble-rouser Nikita Marzapin will replace them. Perez and perhaps Nicholas Latifi will join the list of F1 departees, too.
As always, the bottom line is that Formula 1 will always have much to offer, including plenty of excitement to fans worldwide.
