F1 must be 'open' to plans amid pandemic

Alain Prost

(GMM) The F1 world should stand behind the sport's decisions about when and how the 2020 season gets up and running, according to Alain Prost.

Some are critical of the efforts to go racing again from July, but F1 legend Prost thinks now is the time for unity.

"Given the context, you have to be open to everything," the Renault advisor told Canal Plus.

"When there is a decision, you have to be behind that decision. We cannot always be critical. The criticism must be positive for proposing something else, because we find ourselves in an emergency situation."

And so Prost thinks the 'ghost races' idea is probably the best one for now.

"If we can do it all behind closed doors then that is better than nothing," said the quadruple world champion. "F1 is a sport like any other and people need to dream a little.

"But for motorsport, for F1, economically we are talking about billions of euros between countries like France, England, Italy etc. And that is important as well."

However, Prost is worried that F1 could start its 2020 season without knowing exactly what the rest of the calendar will look like.

"We cannot say 'We will start in Austria and then Silverstone and then we will see. It would be very, very difficult to do that," he said.

"We could very well have maybe 15 races, because things may evolve favorably in certain countries – and when I say 15, it's not 15 destinations. There would certainly be two races on the same circuit.

"I don't really want to go into detail, because I don't want to annoy people right now, but yes we could very well not have a race at all," Prost said. "But I am trying to stay positive."

Silverstone boss Stuart Pringle says it could be "weeks" before it is known whether the British venue may be the one to follow Austria in July.