Start, Sochi Autodrom, 2020

F1 scraps plan to replace cancelled Russian Grand Prix

2022 F1 season

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Formula 1 has confirmed it will not arrange a replacement for the Russian Grand Prix which was due to take place in September.

The 2022 F1 calendar will therefore consist of 22 races, the same as last year. This is one less than the originally scheduled 23, which would have been the longest-ever season.

Russia’s round of the world championship was cancelled following the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Soon afterwards F1 confirmed it had terminated its contract to race in Russia in 2023 and beyond. The event was due to move from Sochi to Igora Drive, near St Petersburg, next year.

The decision not to replace the race removes one of the two triple-headers from the schedule and significantly eases the congestion in the latter months of the championship. F1 originally planned to hold two pairs of triple-headers with one weekend off between them.

The deletion of Russia’s round means the European triple-header of Spa, Zandvoort and Monza is now followed by a two-weekend break, before the series heads to Singapore and then Suzuka.

F1 is believed to have considered various replacements, including an extra race in Singapore.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

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32 comments on “F1 scraps plan to replace cancelled Russian Grand Prix”

  1. At last, a sensible decision from Liberty.

    1. Yeah, with the huge amount already on the calendar better just keep an extra week free. I am sure most teammembers and officials will be happy to have at least a somewhat less busy schedule.

      The last idea to be able to stage it would have been a day race in Singapore a week ahead of the planned night race. It would probably have brought in some money. But it is better to just try and forget this russian race. The venue was quite forgettable already, so good riddance.

    2. Agree,

      I cant imagine the relief by teams, their employee’s and families that get the chance for one additional badly needed week off to help recover/rest during this crazy busy season.

      I’m betting the house that you wont hear any arguments by the teams about this decision?

  2. That is good news for most teamcrews…. and Charles if he is still in the lead at that time :)

    1. For Charles it might have been better if they ditched the Monaco race @macleod!

      1. Stevan Vasiljević
        18th May 2022, 16:17

        ROFL

  3. So there were no promoters offering enough money for the privilege, eh?
    Oh well, less prize money for the teams then…

    1. Richard Wilkinson
      18th May 2022, 15:26

      I’m sure they could have setup a race in the car park of Swindon City and made a buck.

  4. Personally, I’d have preferred if there had been another event in Eastern Asia instead.
    Korea, Buriram, Sepang or even a second Japanese event at Fuji would have been welcome. They are all capable – except financially….

    1. Richard Wilkinson
      18th May 2022, 15:28

      Maybe a race with a hill. Go really wild!

      1. Isn’t Mount Fuji enough of a hill?

        1. Not really as it’s not a hill and not even an mountain……it’s a Vulcano (very big one) but there are in Japan beter circuits :)

          1. Not exactly flat though, is it….

            Yeah, I like other Japanese circuits too, but none of them are F1-ready. Grade 2 at best.
            I can’t see F1 ever racing at Sugo, though it would be very entertaining watching the drivers struggle with it – especially in the wet.
            Autopolis was built for F1, though they never actually went there (but it is a great circuit, just a long way from anywhere). Okayama hosted F1 twice in the mid-90’s, but it’s not suitable for modern F1. Motegi is alright too, though perhaps a little plain. Tokachi is alright but not exactly amazing, just fine as a club track.
            Not too many other choices… Mine Circuit was sold to Mazda. Sendai Hi-land is now a solar farm.
            Most others are really only suitable for drifting.

  5. Does this reduce team costs therefore allow more money for developing the cars under the budget cap?

    1. RandomMallard
      18th May 2022, 16:23

      @oweng I believe the Cost Cap is partially tied to the number of races on the calendar. From my interpretation of the regulations, the cost cap is adjusted by $1.2 million dollars for every race above (add $1.2 million per race) or below (subtract $1.2 million per race) 21 races. As a result, I believe the teams will lose $1.2 million of the cost cap for this season due to the loss of this race.

      1. Thanks for the reply and the info.

  6. I’m quite surprised by this. There should have been no shortage of interest – did Liberty put the price tag too high? Or did they give teams some breathing room by removing a triple-header? The latter would be welcome, as the other triple header is entirely European counties and therefore much easier logistically, but it’s a bit out of form for them.

    1. Yeah, it doesn’t really follow recent convention. I thought maybe the teams had put their foot down, but as RandomMallard points out, they’ve probably had 1.2m shaved off their budgets, so it seems unlikely it was them who said no. Circuits? I’m sure Nurburgring, Sepang, Portimão, Istanbul would’ve taken up the opportunity if the fee was reduced or nominal. Maybe Liberty thought 23 was too much, I don’t know. Strange.

      1. @bernasaurus I don’t know what was wrong with Istanbul Park.
        Maybe they didn’t want another one-off appearance anymore.
        Sepang, probably hosting fees, while European tracks were unrealistic from the get-go as teams use trucks for those events, while flyaways are freight events.

        1. For Turkey, there are two main reasons actually:

          1) Rising Exchange Rates and Inflation Rates: Central Bank of Turkey (actually due to Erdogan’s pressure) decreased the policy rates 3 times between September-December 2021. So; Turkey’s exchange rates and inflation rates have risen too much since October 2021. For instance; 1 USD was equal to about 8.90 TRY in 11th October, while 1 USD is equal to 15.96 TRY now. And also due to this reason, our inflation rate have risen too much. The officially announced inflation rate is actually lower than the real inflation. Besides that, both due to the decreasing impacts of pandemic and the need of substituting Russia’s high hosting fee, I believe that F1 has wanted much higher hosting fee. And 1-2 month ago, one Turkish automobile journalist wrote that F1 wanted Turkey to pay USD 40 million a year for hosting F1 race annually. It would be impossible and much harder with rising excahnge and inflation rates.

          2) Conflicts between Turkish ASN and Track Owner: Actually TOSFED (Turkish ASN) and Istanbul Park owner (Intercity) have had conflicts for many years. For the last years, they agreed to host F1 race in Istanbul Park; but even on these races, there were many problems happened between those parties (actually in the last year’s race). And at the beginning of April, both parties blamed each other on their social media posts for the problems on the last year’s F1 race. Apart from F1, there were not any TOSFED’s Turkish Track Championship races held in Istanbul Park for many years, these championship races are held in another two Turkish circuits: Izmir and Körfez. Besides that, it was also planned that to hold ETCR race in Istanbul Park this weekend, but the race was postponed to November 2 days ago since the pre-event requirements were not fulfilled in time. And I think that this conflict is the main reason of this postponement. Luckily, Intercity’s leasing contract of Istanbul Park will finish next year. After the owner change of Istanbul Park, I hope that at least we can organize an international race (even not F1) in Istanbul Park.

    2. Bruno Verrari
      18th May 2022, 17:22

      Sochi was $50M…

      1. There are answers in the other article produced here asking those questions as to why Sochi is not being replaced. It is not for lack of interest nor possibilities, but it comes down to logistics given the soaring costs of freight that they couldn’t have predicted when Russia first invaded Ukraine and Sochi was cancelled, after which they said replacing it should be no problem.

        Yes of course they could race somewhere instead of Sochi if money was no object, but it obviously is these days. Part of it is that Sochi was the start of a second triple header in a row, preceded by a triple header with only one week gap between it and Sochi. That made for some challenges fitting in a substitute venue that would make sense and then combined with the freight issues, it just makes sense to not hold that race at all. They’ll still be running 5 races in 7 weeks.

    3. The other article notes that higher freight costs might be a factor.

  7. I really enjoy the amount of times the “longest ever season” line gets scuppered 😄

    1. @eurobrun we’re probably on the longest ever streak of that ultimately not being the case. Which is a record!

      1. Haha 👍

  8. Why no Istanbul? Sochi is pretty close so it should be doable in terms of logistics etc.

  9. I’m curious about the funds allocated by the teams for this race. Now that the race is cancelled, will the teams be able to reallocate into the car development or whatever else they need? Will the allocation just disappear?

    (Funny follow-up, can that allocation deduction be used to reduce Andretti’s buy in :D ?)

  10. I guess racing on the same temporary circuit for two consecutive weekends & thus doing more road closures proved too impractical. Oh well, 22 is more than perfectly okay.
    Pushing back Monza by a week would mean zero triple-headers.
    However, one is better than two either way.

  11. And there goes the record, sad day for f1.

  12. I would love to go back to the 16 race season with two weeks between events and a summer break, but of course money talks… Speaking of which, I’m not clear as to Liberty’s machinations re Las Vegas. My understanding is Liberty is putting on the event, so there will be no $30 ± million payday from the promoter; does Liberty hope to make this up in ticket sales (doubtful) but then they take the promoter’s costs and risks, on track advertising (they already get this income), hospitality (ditto), or some other profit method. Doesn’t make sense to me unless they are getting a nice little sum from Las Vegas, which I don’t believe they are. Curious. I’d like to hear any information or thoughts on this.

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