Formula One is planning to start its 2020 season on 5 July in Austria – despite news of the French Grand Prix becoming the 10th race this year to be postponed or cancelled.

The decision to cancel the Circuit Paul Ricard event on 28 June follows an announcement by president Emmanuel Macron to ban mass gatherings in the country until at least mid-July due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, F1 chief Chase Carey is optimistic about beginning the campaign a week later at Austria’s Red Bull Ring and holding between 15 and 18 races before the final event in Abu Dhabi in December.

“Although this morning it was announced that the French Grand Prix, due to take place in late June, will not be going ahead, we are now increasingly confident with the progress of our plans to begin our season this summer,” he said on the F1 website.

“We’re targeting a start to racing in Europe through July, August and beginning of September, with the first race taking place in Austria on 3-5 July weekend.

“We will publish our finalised calendar as soon as we possibly can. All of our plans are obviously subject to change as we still have many issues to address and all of us are subject to the unknowns of the virus.

“We expect the early races to be without fans but hope fans will be part of our events as we move further into the schedule.

“The health and safety of all involved will continue to be priority one and we will only go forward if we are confident we have reliable procedures to address both risks and possible issues.”

For the moment, the British Grand Prix will go ahead on 19 July but Silverstone’s owners said that a race “under normal conditions is just not going to be possible” in announcing a decision to keep supporters away.

So far three Grands Prix have been cancelled – Australian, Monaco, French – and seven postponed – Bahrain, Vietnamese, Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, Azerbaijan, and Canadian.

Meanwhile, Arsenal have reopened their London Colney training ground to first team players for individual training as the Premier League club continued to observe social distancing protocols.

The players trained separately while keeping their distance from each other on the pitch.

The Premier League has been suspended until at least 30 April while lockdown measures are in place until at least 7 May, when the government is set to review the current restrictions.

Clubs expect to return to full training next month while Sky Sports reported the league is looking at a potential restart in June with an eye on finishing the remaining nine rounds of fixtures in July – all behind closed doors.