Staff Reporter.
The Chinese Grand Prix is expected to be dropped from the 2022 Formula 1 calendar when next year’s schedule is published on Friday.
The Shanghai race has not been held since the coronavirus pandemic began and restrictions surrounding Covid in China mean holding it is impossible.
It will be replaced by the Emilia Romagna GP at Imola on 24 April.
F1 is set to publish a record 23-race calendar with all the other established events absent this season reinstated.
Races in Australia, Canada, Singapore and Japan are all set to take place in 2022.
All four countries have missed the last two seasons as a result of their respective national restrictions surrounding Covid-19.
The 2022 season will start in Bahrain on 20 March and end in Abu Dhabi on 20 November, and cram 23 races into just 35 weeks.
The championship will end three weeks earlier than this year’s to avoid a clash with the football World Cup in Qatar.
And it features the first race in Miami, a blue-riband event that is being held in addition to the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, with the hope of growing F1’s audience in America.
This year, F1 published a 23-race calendar but had to amend it as a number of countries decided they could not hold races in the middle of the pandemic.
In the end, 22 races will be held this year, despite the cancellation of the events in Australia, China, Canada, Singapore and Japan.
F1 is confident that the chances of this happening again next year are greatly reduced.
Japan, which has managed to bring Covid back under control after a summer surge that coincided with the Tokyo Olympics, is considered the event most likely to fall if the circumstances surrounding the virus change.
Australia, which has had some of the world’s most stringent Covid travel restrictions, has been moved from its traditional slot at the start of the season to become the third race to give it more time to prepare for the grand prix.