Should F1 introduce its own superseason?

As the clock ticks with each second, the global coronavirus pandemic changes form once more. Each fragment of time that elapses is enough for another COVID-19 transmission, one that could delay the notion of normality by a further month or two.

In these parts, normality means motorsport. With Formula 1 now not anticipating the beginning of its 2020 season until June at the earliest, it means that there are numerous contracts in place for races without any real space in the calendar for them to realistically go ahead. In other words, F1 has lost almost half of its races and has half a year to run them all. Talk about condensing the calendar.

It helps in that regard that the August break has been removed to shoehorn in some of the postponed events, but the decision to dispense with summer holidays isn't exactly popular among the staff employed within F1. At some point, the coronavirus outbreak will subside, and we'll be able to go racing once again - but that may not be until the second half of the year.

Surely, F1 can solve all of those scheduling problems in one fell swoop - by following in the footsteps of the World Endurance Championship and combining 2020 and 2021 into a superseason. It's a conclusion that other F1 teams have considered too - with Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto admitting that he is "in constant dialogue" over the constantly changing calendar.

As F1's overhauled ruleset, primed for 2021, has now been pushed back a year in response to the financial strains that the effects of coronavirus has levied on all of the teams, 2021 will run with no changes to the current technical formula.

Chassis and gearbox designs will be frozen, so there's no chance that teams will be investing in all-new cars for next year. With largely the same machinery in both seasons, a combination of the two would make thematic sense. By gluing the seasons together, the calendar is then opened up considerably.

Paul Ricard hardly seems like a fitting opener, but Silverstone - having hosted the F1 World Championship's first race back in 1950 - is perfect for its 70th anniversary

F1 would now have six months open for business in 2020, and then even more on tap in 2021. Within that time frame, F1 could theoretically run a season of up to 30 races, without having to cram too many of them in as double-header events. Currently, back-to-back races warrant enough of a race team employee's time away from home, while 2018's triple-header of France, Austria and Great Britain was particularly gruelling.

That also hands an opportunity to the employees to organise holidays once again, and the longer gaps between races will be a significant player in warding off the effect of burnout on everyone involved with the team - which can only be a good thing. It's Management 101 - everyone's at their best when they feel valued as people, rather than being employed as machines.

So how would the calendar shake out? By picking out the high-value events on this year's calendar that have been postponed, along with those that can be grouped into geographical locations neatly, we can start to shape the calendar. But there's also commercial concerns at play, too.

At the time of writing, the trio of European races post-Montreal have all been left untouched. But Paul Ricard hardly seems like a fitting opener while Silverstone - having hosted the F1 World Championship's first race back in 1950 - is perfect for its 70th anniversary.

We reserve the right to shuffle those races around under creative license, ready for an admittedly optimistic kick-off date at the end of June.

How a superseason calendar could look

British Grand Prix - June 28

Austrian Grand Prix - July 5

French Grand Prix - July 19

Hungarian Grand Prix - August 2

Dutch Grand Prix - August 16

Belgian Grand Prix - August 30

Italian Grand Prix - September 6

Russian Grand Prix - September 20

Japanese Grand Prix - October 4

United States Grand Prix - October 18

Mexico City Grand Prix - November 1

Brazilian Grand Prix - November 15

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix I - November 29

Australian Grand Prix - January 10

Bahrain Grand Prix - January 24

Singapore Grand Prix - February 7

Vietnamese Grand Prix - February 21

Chinese Grand Prix - March 7

Azerbaijan Grand Prix - March 21

San Marino Grand Prix (Imola) - April 11

German Grand Prix - April 25

Dutch Grand Prix II - May 9

Monaco Grand Prix - May 23

French Grand Prix II - Jun 6

Austrian Grand Prix II - June 20

British Grand Prix II - July 4

Canadian Grand Prix - August 8

Miami Grand Prix - August 22

Mexico City Grand Prix II - September 5

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix II - September 26

There's a few repeat races in the mix, certainly, and we've tried to select the ones that would be realistic given the funding for each event. Some promoters, who have tighter purse-strings than others, would be happy with just one event in the superseason, while others would pay a premium for two.

One obvious omission is the Spanish Grand Prix, which appears to have its back to the wall as the Barcelona circuit's finances are allegedly less-than-healthy. Meanwhile, the San Marino Grand Prix name makes a return as Imola's owners suggested that the Italian circuit was ready to replace the postponed Chinese round at short notice, before the global coronavirus crisis worsened dramatically in the following weeks.

With FIA Grade 1 status, Imola could be a feasible - and popular - reinstatement to the calendar, while Miami has also been included amid its preparations for a grand prix around the Hard Rock Stadium. Abu Dhabi continues to pay handsomely for the season finale, which has been placed in September for a nice, early finish to a long season.

Market forces such as sponsors and suppliers would also need to be tied down beyond 2020 and, with an impending financial crash as the coronavirus' infectiousness spreads into industry, it would be hard to justify the capital

However, some circuit promoters would undoubtedly be left aggrieved by the change in calendar as they lose grands prix in either 2020 or 2021. With deals signed and money exchanged, F1 would find it difficult to extricate itself from some of the contracts without losing too much capital. And therein lies one of the biggest sticking points for a superseason: the murky world of contract law.

The majority of race promoters already have contracts in hand for 2021, in which they fork over a not-insignificant sum of money to get their venue on the calendar. That forms a huge part of F1's income, which would be lost to the possibility of peeling certain events away from the calendar.

One could argue that this is an unavoidable consequence of the coronavirus outbreak anyway, following the cancellation of numerous races on the calendar. But there will be venues vying for two races on the superseason mega-calendar, and it will be undoubtedly difficult - nay, nigh-on impossible - to appease them all.

Losing that money would provide a knock-on effect to the teams' prize money too, as the majority of the pot is filled by promoter fees. Those teams would also be most put out by the idea that they would receive only one batch of prize money for 2020-21, rather than two. As the superseason would cross two financial years, for a team to only claw back one year's worth of income could potentially signal the end for quite a few in the sport - so the prize fund would need to be augmented in other ways.

In a similar vein, driver contracts are also done on a yearly basis. For some, like Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, the switch to a superseason yields no issues as both are signed up to Ferrari and Red Bull respectively beyond 2021. For more-or-less everyone else, it presents a few interesting issues; big hitters Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo are all out-of-contract beyond 2020.

A team like Ferrari could pounce on the likes of Hamilton or Ricciardo mid-season, which would throw up complications for their current employers - who, part way through, would lose one of their key driving forces.

A neutral fan would certainly find the mid-season interplay between teams as contracts expire a matter of great interest, but those involved would be hurriedly trying to tie drivers down for an extra year.

Of course, market forces such as sponsors and suppliers would also need to be tied down beyond 2020 and, with an impending financial crash as the coronavirus' infectiousness spreads into industry, it would be hard to justify the capital.

Sponsorship is, after all, a luxury item - not the sort of luxury item that you'd pick on Desert Island Discs, but the sort of luxury that allows a company's higher-ups to rub shoulders with similar grandes fromages over champagne and nibbles at a race event.

One team's relationship with a supplier, namely McLaren's impending switch to Mercedes, had doubt cast upon its virtue when it was announced that chassis development would be frozen, but the team has been granted dispensation to make the amendments required to shed its MCL35 from the last remnants of the Renault powertrain.

Whether that could feasibly transition between a superseason is unknown, but teams have used more than one engine supplier in a season before.

A lot of the difficulties, as always, rest with the financial implications. Furthermore, the FIA and F1 would need to decide how best to play the cost cap that is set to make its long-awaited entrance in 2021. Would that then apply to all teams at the beginning of the year, despite the superseason being at its midway point?

But perhaps a lot of those financial terms and scenarios do rest on the uncertain world that, post-quarantines, people will be venturing back into. Perhaps, from a purely commercial standpoint, a superseason would be a particularly difficult animal to tame, but it bears a solid compromise between contracts already in place and flexibility for the season ahead.

A superseason has worked for the WEC, while Formula E employs a cross-year calendar too; it might not be traditional, but it could certainly work in Formula 1.

And if F1 decides that it must fit races into the beginning of 2021 to fulfil its contractual obligations - then it's hard to say that there's many other options available.