Japanese GP 2021 has been cancelled.

[ispano6]

Ridiculous and a shame on the Japanese for taking covid lightly.

The young are ignorant and spreading it, government not being strict and allowing delta variant carriers into the country from the UK and India. SuperGT is still on for this weekend, and I don't believe the Suzuka GP being canceled has to do with being prestigious enough. It's more about entry restrictions and mandatory quarantine times and the logistics around the GP. The SuperGT crew would already have been in Japan long enough and in their bubble. Glad I attended the 2019 race weekend despite the typhoon and Leclerc taking Max out. Heck I even made it into the highlights reel so I'm at least a part of the history of the last Suzuka race of this era. Maybe Honda will be a sponsor in next year's race and aid RedBull in data analysis, or even a Suzuka special. Hopefully they won't cancel the US GP since I'm all set to attend.

[Unf]

It means that flying to Japan is dangerous whereas flying to Saudi Arabia or Mexico is safe? We have vaccine etc. but this BS is still around. Shame.

[aMessageToCharlie]

Good thing for mercedes? This is a really good RBR track isnt it?

Its a really good RedBull track that they havent won it for 8 years!

lol

[Andres125sx]

What a sad new, Suzuka is my favourite track ever, I´ll miss it

[Just_a_fan]

What is interesting is that it was ok for the Olympics to go ahead but not other sporting events. Sure, the Olympics is the big-ticket sporting event in the world (other than perhaps the football World Cup) but at least F1 can be carried out in a bio-secure way. All of the teams and associated people are fully vaccinated and rigorous testing is carried out too. F1 is probably the safest sport, in terms of Covid, anywhere in the world.

[El Scorchio]

What is interesting is that it was ok for the Olympics to go ahead but not other sporting events. Sure, the Olympics is the big-ticket sporting event in the world (other than perhaps the football World Cup) but at least F1 can be carried out in a bio-secure way. All of the teams and associated people are fully vaccinated and rigorous testing is carried out too. F1 is probably the safest sport, in terms of Covid, anywhere in the world.

I'll wager they simply couldn't afford not to go through with the Olympics and basically had no choice.

[DChemTech]

What is interesting is that it was ok for the Olympics to go ahead but not other sporting events. Sure, the Olympics is the big-ticket sporting event in the world (other than perhaps the football World Cup) but at least F1 can be carried out in a bio-secure way. All of the teams and associated people are fully vaccinated and rigorous testing is carried out too. F1 is probably the safest sport, in terms of Covid, anywhere in the world.

I'll wager they simply couldn't afford not to go through with the Olympics and basically had no choice.

Indeed. As far as I gather, the majority of the Japanese population was actually against proceeding with the Olympics. But cancelling them on short notice would mean a huge loss of face in the international community. That is much less so for F1. It's a political decision, and has preciously little to do with the actual risks associated with certain events.

[SiLo]

What is interesting is that it was ok for the Olympics to go ahead but not other sporting events. Sure, the Olympics is the big-ticket sporting event in the world (other than perhaps the football World Cup) but at least F1 can be carried out in a bio-secure way. All of the teams and associated people are fully vaccinated and rigorous testing is carried out too. F1 is probably the safest sport, in terms of Covid, anywhere in the world.

I'll wager they simply couldn't afford not to go through with the Olympics and basically had no choice.

The OIC also probably has the final say on it, unlike the Grand Prix, which would garner less money, publicicity and they have more control over.

[Mogster]

With the olympics you’ve built new infrastructure, as well as the lost TV revenue. With an F1 race there’s none of those considerations, FOM would presumably take the hit but only if they can’t screen 15 races as last year. Presumably the race would also have been held behind closed doors if at all, so no gate receipts. No gate receipts seems to be a deal breaker for many venues that have FOM contracts for a fixed number of races.

[jknights]

A real shame for all the real fans of F1.