Spielberg to host delayed season opener

Seven months after they last competed in earnest, the Formula One circus will push a post-lockdown reset button to open the 2020 season in Austria on Sunday.

The event at Spielberg is being held on its original calendar date, but is not the once-anticipated 11th round of the championship, but the first — a season-opener delayed by the global coronavirus pandemic.

More than three months after the Australian Grand Prix was abandoned on the eve of opening practice in Melbourne, the race in the Styrian Alps will be run behind closed doors, without fans, sponsors’ agents and guests and only a handful of reporters restricted to the media center.