No deadline on remainder of 2020 calendar

Organisers are in no rush to finalise the second half of the 2020 Formula 1 season following the confirmation of its opening eight races.

A revised calendar published on Tuesday outlined an exclusively European start to the year, beginning with two races in successive weekends in Austria.

The initial eight events take the season up to the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in early September as the sport expects to run “between 15-18” races in 2020.

Despite that desire, F1 boss Chase Carey said there is no rush to finalise the full schedule just yet.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” he explained in an interview with the sport’s official website.

“We certainly continue to have a lack of visibility beyond a fairly short timeframe.

“We’re engaged with all our promoters and we’re in active discussion with all of them, all of them are struggling to have the same visibility.

“We’re not going to give a deadline right now,” he added.

“With the fluidity of the situation, a deadline would create pressures which may not be right and realistic for the situation so we’re thinking of goals.”

Reports in Vietnam have suggested its inaugural event could proceed in November as part of an Asian leg, though rumours out of Singapore have suggested it could miss out.

Visits to the Americas and then the Middle East are also expected with organisers in Mexico standing form on their October 30 to November 1 date.

Carey revealed hopes to have a more solid grasp on what the second half of the 2020 season would look like before the end of the month.

“Our goal would be before the end of June to if not complete the rest of the calendar, is to have a handle on it,” Carey explained.

“We know what we would like to try and do.

“We have other options if some things don’t come together.

“We do expect there are races which are on the calendar which will probably still not occur. I think we certainly have options.

“We want to make sure we do it right but in these times, safety is still priority one, and we want to make sure we do it in a way that we’ve understood as much as possible what is required, what are the issues we have to deal with and not rush to any decisions before we can make them in the right way.”

F1 is set to get underway for 2020 at the Red Bull Ring on July 3-5 for the Austrian Grand Prix.