As expected, the 2023 Chinese Grand Prix has officially been cancelled, marking another season without a visit to the Shanghai International Circuit.
Whilst the majority of the world has returned to some form of normality following the Coronavirus pandemic, China continues to live by a ‘Covid zero’ approach.
The country appears set to only reopen to the world once they’ve completely wiped the illness out of the nation, which is populated by 1.4 billion as of 2021.
The Chinese Grand Prix was scheduled for 16 April 2023, two weeks after the Australian Grand Prix and two weeks before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
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To put into context how long it’s been since F1 raced in China, when the country last hosted a race in 2019, Pierre Gasly drove for Red Bull and Nicholas Latifi was competing in Formula 2.
As well as that, Daniel Ricciardo was racing for Renault and Charles Leclerc was in his first season at Ferrari.
Formula 1 is reportedly looking into finding a replacement race; however, nothing is set to be decided or announced until the new year.
The cancellation of the Chinese GP does actually cause quite a big issue for the sport, given that without it there is now a four-week break between the races in Australia and Azerbaijan.
Given the unlikelihood that a race can be moved, a replacement is seemingly a highly probable expectation, but where?
Finding a last-minute host is not an easy job, especially given how much it costs to host a Grand Prix.
A return to Portimao is a reported candidate, with the venue having hosted races in 2020 and 2022 as a stand-in.
This doesn’t seem particularly logical, though, given that the sport will be transporting all the equipment from Australia all the way to Europe, rather than to Asia first.
The costs of this will have to be considered, especially with how strict the sport is in regard to the budget cap.
A race in Asia or the Middle East would strategically make more sense and keep costs down, rather than flying everything straight to Europe.
Following the announcement, some fans have taken to social media to suggest where they think the stand-in race should be held, with one person suggesting Istanbul.
“Before Azerbaijan GP, Istanbul GP would be great. And the transportation will be easy,” wrote the user.
Whilst Istanbul is interestingly situated in both Asia and Europe, it would be a more logical solution that Portugal, given how close Turkey is to Azerbaijan.
Others suggested a race at Kyalami in South Africa; however, this again, doesn’t make logistical sense.
Another user wrote: “I guess it should be Sepang to reduce further logistical nightmare but would love Hockenheim or Magny Cours!”
A return of the Malaysian Grand Prix would be a brilliant solution, given the distance between Melbourne and Sepang, but it is extremely unlikely that F1 will want to return to Malaysia.
The Malaysian GP was dropped from the calendar a few years ago as a result of a lack of revenue, with the event also having been incredibly expensive to host.
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It really is going to be a headache for the sport to sort, given how far Australia is from Europe.
A few fans joked that a second race at Interlagos should be introduced, with it delivering “year after year”.
“Any race that falls off the calendar should be replaced with (another) race at Interlagos. It just delivers year after year!” exclaimed the Twitter user.