Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton says this will be the most difficult season ever.
With a number of races cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the F1 season gets underway in Austria this weekend.
And the Briton says: “We are preparing the best way we can for what is going to be the most difficult season that Formula One and all of us have experienced.”
Sunday will be the first time Austria has hosted a season-opener, at Spielberg’s scenic Red Bull Ring, and the following weekend will see another milestone when the circuit becomes the first to host two F1 championship races in the same season.
That could be good news for Dutch crowd-pleaser Max Verstappen, who has brought a home victory for Red Bull for the past two years.
There will be no fans, no sponsors, no hospitality units or VIPs and no socialising between teams within a paddock “bubble” where safe spacing and face masks are the “new normal: and everything will take a little longer.