2021 Formula 1 calendar "pretty close" to completion

Outgoing Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey has confirmed the sport is poised to reveal a "closer-to-normal" 2021 calendar.

Covid-19 delayed the start of the current season, leading to a condensed, Europe-heavy calendar of 17 races in just under six months.

Looking ahead to next year, and bearing in mind the difficulty in anticipating the state of the coronavirus at any given time in a particular country, at this stage, Carey has stated a more regular calendar is close to completion.

“At this point, we are pretty close to having a calendar for 2021," Carey told the 'Beyond the Grid' podcast. "We’ve got a couple of issues to resolve.

“Clearly we’re later in the process because of the issues of 2020 that we’ve only recently resolved, so all of those things have created delays in getting it out.

“And we’re going to plan for a 2021 calendar that, again, looks pretty much like a normal calendar, like the calendar we would have planned in January.

“What we don’t really know is what will be the state of Covid next year and how we navigate through it.

“We’re planning for events, we’re planning to have fans, we’re planning to have a season that I don’t know if I’d say is normal but certainly gets us back to normal, closer to normal, on that track.”

Despite the success of races at the Nürburgring and Mugello this year, and with Imola, Portimão and Istanbul to come, Carey confirmed there are no plans for these circuits to feature in the future.

"We are a global sport," he added. "The reality was this year that we haven’t really raced globally, we’ve largely raced in the European zone.

“We want to get back to making sure we have our races in the Americas, we have our races in Asia, we have our races spread across the globe.

“That is important to us as a global sport and we have some great historic tracks that are a part of our calendar like Silverstone, Monza, Monaco, Spa.

“So certainly, historic European tracks are an important part of the sport, but I think you’ll see a more balanced set of events across the globe on the 2021 calendar.”

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