Chinese Grand Prix: stage preview

The Covid-19 pandemic entered Formula 1 at the beginning of February 2020, when the cancellation of the Formula E round was announced in Shanghai. Then it seemed that this was not serious. Well, they canceled it, and they canceled it. Not for the first time. And ordinary citizens – promoters, organizers, team employees – had no experience of working in such conditions.

The story of the arrest and subsequent escape of former Renault-Nissan president Carlos Ghosn enlivened the new year’s news feed. The second season of Drive To Survive was preparing for release, the teams presented new cars. Everything went as usual.

Formula 1 had just emerged from its winter break when the FIA ​​announced at the end of January that it was prepared to take all measures due to Covid-19, including canceling stages. Who could have imagined that weekly protocols on the number of cases within Formula 1 would very soon replace race reports in the news feed, and that teams would develop and produce ventilators.

The winter tests went well. There were several conversations, but at the level of rumors. No one really believed that all this would last. The teams flew to Melbourne and did their usual interviews when it emerged on Thursday that a McLaren employee had tested positive for the coronavirus. And the team withdrew from the competition. The next morning started with the announcement that the Australian Grand Prix had been canceled.

And everything started to fall apart. The teams returned home and closed their bases for an indefinite break. Formula 1 has stopped, as has the entire show business industry. People were sent home, children were homeschooled, my daughter and I went for a walk, as the legend says, ‘to go to the doctor’, and thanks to a journalist’s ID, we were able to use transport so we could get to the countryside could go. Each of us has such a story.

But we had to work and feed our families. Helmut Marko took the initiative and interpreted Dietrich Mateschitz’s idea. In April 2020, he developed an anti-Covid scenario together with the FIA, proposing to hold races with mandatory testing and without spectators, starting the season with two stages in Spielberg. It was important to get everything going. The teams collected loans to produce parts for new cars that they simply had nothing to give away.

The idea worked. Formula 1 was also the first in this. At first it looked strange, but the fans sitting at home missed the real racing and had the opportunity to partially return to their old lives through the TV screen.

Football, popular and sought after by the public, returned much later. With cardboard fans in the stands. We at F1News.ru have already returned from remote work to working in the editorial office, there was racing and Sky Sport showed strange football with continuous recordings of fans’ screams, like in a video game. I remember that Misha Smirnov, our commentator, journalist and now director, and I were perplexed at the time: “Can this be so?” It’s a good thing that Formula 1 didn’t think of this stupidity.

It’s great that Liberty Media has tackled this crisis, which became their first real test, and in return has gained solid trust from partners, sponsors and viewers. Bernie then suggested canceling everything…

In 2006, Michael Schumacher achieved his last, 91st victory in Formula 1 – only in Shanghai. He will certainly be remembered this weekend. In 2019, the 1000th Formula 1 Grand Prix was held in China. The organizers, with the help of oil and fuel manufacturers, paid generously to host the anniversary race – and its honored guests. At the time, Kvyat was racing for Toro Rosso in Formula 1, and Albon was his partner. Kubica ended his career at Williams and Russell made his debut. Lewis Hamilton won the title and Max Verstappen finished third, just like his team.

The upcoming Grand Prix will be the 1106th. So much has changed in this relatively short period of time. A lot, except the need to set an alarm so as not to oversleep during the first and only workout of the weekend. Friday at six o’clock sharp!