F1 2020 could get 'real season' patch when final calendar is set

F1 2020 players may get the chance to drive the revised 2020 race schedule as well as the 22-round calendar which was originally planned.

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The pandemic has led to the first 10 races of the year being postponed or cancelled. Other changes have already been confirmed in the revised schedule, including double rounds at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone, and Bahrain becoming the penultimate round on the calendar.

As RaceFans previously revealed, F1 2020 will feature all the tracks which were originally slated for inclusion, including Albert Park and Monaco whose races have been cancelled.

Formula 1 game director Lee Mather said they will consider whether to offer the final calendar as an option once it is confirmed.

“It’s a broader discussion than just whether the fans would want that or whether we’d want to do it,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans.

F1 2020 screenshot — Bahrain’s round will now take place in December

“There’s contractual obligations to how a season is run and the order in which the season’s run. Obviously, I’m sure Formula 1 is in a huge discussion with the circuits as to how that happens, because contracts are in place, a certain track is expected a certain time and that’s fixed. So we’re always open to making those changes.

“We obviously want to represent the season as realistically as we can. So at the moment, our representation of the season is how it should have played out. But if things change, we will look to address it in a relevant way to the game that obviously keeps it what the fans would expect. At the moment, we’re sticking with the standard ‘as expected’ season.”

Formula 1 chairman and CEO Chase Carey has indicated the series could race at some venues which were not originally part of this year’s calendar. If this happens, those tracks will not be added to F1 2020.

“There’s no way we could do that,” said Mather. “It takes a year’s man-hours to actually create a race track. So if it’s a track that we don’t have it in the game at the moment or maybe wasn’t in say last year or the year before then the chances would be pretty much nigh-on impossible.”

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Note: All images and footage show the game in an unfinished state.

Video: F1 2020 First Play

More videos from our first play of F1 2020 are being published over the coming days. Find them all on RaceFans’ YouTube page:

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10 comments on “F1 2020 could get ‘real season’ patch when final calendar is set”

Jere (@jerejj)
18th May 2020, 8:05
Also Paul Ricard. Montreal most likely, and probably also Singapore join that group and Zandvoort.
Nevertheless, I won’t mind about having something that doesn’t happen IRL massively as far as the game’s concerned.
I’m still going to be as precise with realism as possible, and thus, avoid using those circuits in the upcoming game within this year.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
18th May 2020, 9:35
Why is that wrong? A race track isn’t just the road way (which has colour and texture), it’s the grand stands, the pits and pit lane, it’s the advertising panels, it’s the side of the track, it’s the run off areas, the marshals on the side of the track, etc. Also in the software there has to be an almost exact three dimensional replica of the real race track.
StephenH
18th May 2020, 10:28
Why not just have a ‘choose your own calendar’ feature where you can create your own season of races and run the tracks / races in any order you like.
You could start the season at Monaco like they sometimes did in the sixties, finish the season and have a championship showdown at Suzuka, move Brazil back to it’s original early-season slot, or move Australia back to the last race again.
You could actually do this on MGPRS2 (Ubisoft’s massively underrated PC F1 sim from the late 90’s) and it made for some great combinations.
1. William Jones
  18th May 2020, 11:00
  That would be nice, and I would like it if it slightly – very slightly shuffled the races in the future seasons. And yes, Monaco GP 2 was a brilliant game!
2. Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
  18th May 2020, 12:08
  Why not just have a ‘choose your own calendar’ feature
  You can do this to an extent in F1 2020 – you can reduce the season length from 22 races to 16 or 10 and choose which tracks you want to include.
  More details in the preview.
RB13
18th May 2020, 21:44
The only reason this would appeal was if Imola was brought in to sub for a missing venue and if that was included. As they’ve said they can’t do this, they shouldn’t bother with the truncated calendar at all.
1. BasCB (@bascb)
  19th May 2020, 12:51
  Hockenheim is also on the list of potential “replacement” venues. And that is one that they could include since they surely have the data from the race there last year.
  1. Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
    20th May 2020, 21:49
    @bascb Which for me is the only reason why having data from a recent previous year would matter – only Hockenheim is not on the calendar that hasn’t been in this iteration of the game engine.
    1. Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      20th May 2020, 21:49
      * – I meant “has been in this iteration of the game engine”. Sorry.
    2. BasCB (@bascb)
      21st May 2020, 6:59
      Thanks for confirming that @alianora-la-canta, I thought that was the case but wasn’t completely sure.