It's been 188 days since the last Formula 1 race was held on December 1, 2019, but the great news for long suffering fans is that the 2020 season will commence in 27 days.
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Since the final race of 2019 in Abu Dhabi at the beginning of December, 10 of the scheduled 22 races for this season have either been postponed or cancelled.
The cancelled races include Australia, Holland, Monaco and France while no dates have been released for the postponed races that were scheduled for Bahrain, Vietnam, China, Spain, Azerbaijan and Canada.
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At this point Liberty Media and the FIA have announced a condensed eight-race calendar to commence at the Red Bull Ring in Austria on July 5.
One week after the Austrian GP the circuit will host the Styrian GP which is the name of the province where the circuit is located.
This will be the first time in the 70-year history of the world championship that the same circuit has hosted back-to-back rounds.
The Hungarian GP will be held on July 19 which means three races on consecutive weekends so there will be a great deal of pressure on the teams.
After a well earned two-week break Silverstone will host the British GP on August 2 to be followed a week later at Silverstone on August 9 for "The 70th Anniversary GP".
This race will be an acknowledgement that the former World War II airfield hosted the very first world championship race in 1950.
On August 16 the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will host the Spanish GP to finish off another tough three consecutive races.
After a two-week break the teams will be at Spa for the Belgium GP on August 30 and then one week later on September 6 Monza will host the Italian GP to end the European phase of the championship.
Eight rounds in ten weeks is unprecedented and all teams will be extremely anxious about the distinct possibility of damage and the very limited time to make repairs.
No spectators will be permitted to attend the three-day events with confirmation that the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 championship races to be conducted on each weekend as support categories.
That's great news for Tasmania's Alex Peroni who has been working hard on his fitness in anticipation of the F3 season finally getting underway.
F1 chief executive Chase Carey said on Monday that an announcement will be made soon regarding the balance of the calendar and expressed the hope that race fans would be able to attend race meetings later in the season.
Carey also said that races would go ahead even if an individual was found to have a positive infection, in contrast to the Australian GP that was cancelled at the last minute due to a McLaren team member testing positive.
"We encourage teams to have procedures in place so if an individual has to be placed into quarantine we have the ability to quarantine them at a hotel and to replace that individual", Carey said.
As far as the Moto GP season is concerned, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpelata has told media the premier class season would commence at Jerez in Spain with back-to-back meetings on July 19 and 26.
Espelata said he anticipated 12 to 13 races to constitute the championship but told media that a final decision regarding the four non European races in Thailand, Malaysia, USA and Argentina would not be made before the end of July.
The World Superbike championship has been in limbo since after the opening round at Phillip Island with seven rounds either postponed or cancelled.
This week it was announced that the championship would recommence in Spain at Jerez on July 31/ August 2 straight after the back to back meetings for Moto GP.
The next round will be week later at Algarve in Portugal before the championship moves to Aragon at the end of August before picking up the original schedule.
The World Rally Championship was placed on hold after the first three rounds in Monte Carlo, Sweden and Mexico which led to rounds in Portugal, Kenya (the Safari), Finland and New Zealand being cancelled.
The rounds in Argentina and Sardenia were postponed and at this stage it's unknown if they will be rescheduled.
The remaining rounds are Turkey on 25/27 September ,Germany 16/18 October, Britain October 30/November 1 and Japan 20/22 November.
Six time champion Sebastien Ogier leads the championship on 62 points from Elfyn Evans on 54 and Thierry Neuville 42 with each of them scoring a win from the three events so far.
The Supercars championship will recommence at the end of this month at Sydney Motorsport Park to be followed by rounds at Winton, Darwin, Townsville, The Bend (SA), Bathurst,Perth,Tasmania, Sandown, New Zealand January 9/10 and the final round at Bathurst on February 5/7.
The only rounds that have missed out are obviously the Australian GP round in March plus the Gold Coast and Newcastle rounds.
The bottom line is that the last half of this year and early next year there will be a lot of square eyes.
