MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/. Organizers of FIA (the International Automobile Federation) Formula One racing presented on Tuesday an extended calendar of Grands Prix for this year’s prestigious auto racing championship, which was disrupted earlier in the year by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"Following the recent announcements regarding the initial thirteen races of the revised 2020 calendar, Formula 1 is today announcing additional races for this season taking the total to 17," the statement reads.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced earlier in the year to cancel the legendary Monaco GP, as well as the Grands Prix in Australia and France.

Today’s official statement from Formula One racing series announced four more races for this year, namely one race in Turkey on November 13-15; two races in Bahrain (on November 27-29 and December 4-6) and one race in Abu Dhabi on December 11-13.

"We can confirm that a number of races in the revised 2020 season will be open to a limited number of fans, including hospitality, and we are working with each promoter to finalize the details," the press service of F1 continued in its statement.

This year’s FIA F1 World Championship was intended to be the first in the history of Formula One to run in 22 Grands Prix around the globe, opening with the race in Australia on March 15 and closing with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The championship was set to see a debut of the Grand Prix in Vietnam’s Hanoi and the return of the Dutch Grand Prix, which had been absent from the race calendar since 1985.

COVID-19

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 23,841,520 people have been infected worldwide and more than 817,680 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 16,382,850 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.