Dutch Grand Prix return to calendar after 35 years postponed until 2021

The return of the Dutch Grand Prix has been postponed until 2021, after organisers confirmed that it would not form part of this summer’s much-changed European Formula One calendar. With the race called off from its original date of May 3, which should have marked its first appearance in the schedule since 1985, race director Jan Lammers decided he was not prepared to hold the event behind closed doors.

“We ask everyone to be patient,” said Lammers, who drove in F1 in the early Eighties. “I have had to look forward to this for 35 years, so I can wait another year.”

The spectacle at Zandvoort, a famously tight and twisting circuit on the North Sea coast, had been intended to herald the feats of home hero Max Verstappen. But with the Dutch government threatening a ban on all mass gatherings until a Covid-19 vaccine is found, officials saw no option but to scrap the race altogether for 2020. The occasion had been sold out, with demand for 300,000 tickets across three days vastly exceeding supply.

“With F1, we have investigated the potential to hold a rescheduled race this year without spectators,” Lammers explained. “But we would like to celebrate this moment, the return of the sport at Zandvoort, with our racing fans in the Netherlands.”

As F1 puts the final touches to its European campaign, there is a growing possibility that Hungary will follow the opening two races in Austria with a race on July 19. Should UK quarantine restrictions be eased, the two British grands prix at Silverstone would then take place on August 2 and 9. McLaren confirmed yesterday that revenues for its F1 division were down £4.4 million on the first quarter of 2019, due to the suspension of racing and the extended factory shutdown enforced by the pandemic.