It’s been a long few weeks, but to help break up some of the monotony we’ve got a show for you this week. We had been planning to have a show last week but had to scrap it at the last minute.
This week’s Unicorn Chaser where you can make your own paper Toto Wolf, Lewis Hamilton, and Valtteri Bottas can be found here - https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/news/2020/04/epsonpapercraftdrivers/
We open with news of the passing of Sir Stirling Moss at the age of 90. Since you have the time - check out the excellent documentary on Sir Stirling that was presented by Sir Patrick Stewart on the BBC a few years ago. You can find Racing Legends - Sir Stirling Moss on YouTube here….
Bernie Ecclestone is expecting his fourth child… Yes, that Bernie Ecclestone….
Mercedes HPP along with University College London has developed a CPAP device that’s been approved by the NHS for use in treating Covid-19 patients and reducing the chance that they might end up in the ICU.
Ron Dennis has donated 1 million GBP to an effort to provide meals to NHS workers for the next 3 months, while Pirelli’s Mario Isola has been on the frontline of the Covid-19 response in Milan Italy where he is a volunteer ambulance driver and paramedic - something that he’s been doing for years.
McLaren, Williams, Racing Point, Haas, Renault, as well as Formula 1 Management have all announced staff furloughs in response to the shutdown of the sport.
The previously scheduled 3 week shutdown for teams has now been extended to 5 weeks.
This won’t have an issue for the development of the 2022 cars - as the teams have agreed to freeze development on those cars for the remainder of the year. Meanwhile the implementation of the cost cap for 2021 will proceed as scheduled. Discussions are ongoing regarding a potential engine development freeze as well.
The Canadian GP has officially been postponed - which means that the French GP could be the start of the season.
There’s been some speculation regarding what the calendar will look like, with suggestions that racing could resume as early as July - or not. The season could be extended into January 2021 as a “super season.” There could be as many as 19 races, or as few as 8 races. Or maybe they’ll just scrap the whole season, but won’t decide on that until October.
Silverstone has announced that they would be willing to host more than one race in a restarted season - and would be open to a running of one of those races in a reverse layout.
Zandvoort doesn’t really want to run their rescheduled race without fans - but also admits that F1 hasn’t discussed anything with them yet.
And NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace has lost a sponsor after rage quitting an eNASCAR event.