Barcelona, Mar 1 (IANS): The head of Formula One Stefano Domenicali has said that it will be 'no problem at all' to fill the gap left by the Sochi event and maintain the record-breaking 23-race schedule.

The Russian Grand Prix was originally set to take place on 25 September, but cancelled following the country's invasion of Ukraine with the race being 'impossible to hold in the current circumstances'. It leaves a gap in the schedule between the Italian Grand Prix on 11 September and the Singapore Grand Prix on 2 October.

F1 had to replace several races across the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Domenicali insisted that the sport would be prepared to stage another race elsewhere, even at short notice.

Domenicali said the sport was well prepared to find a short-notice replacement considering their experience doing so during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Talking specifically about the situation this year, because of the Russian situation, I just can confirm to you that we have already proven in the last couple of years to be very flexible and not to have any problem in finding possible solutions to that," he said. "So I can just confirm that it could be an option for this year with no problem at all."

"Due to the great success that F1 is having, the possibility of having new races in the future is still very big," he added.

"With regard to possible venues for the future, we can just say that there are a lot of discussions going on. We need to make a lot of choices for the strategic markets that we believe are the right ones for Formula 1. Some'hing we don't have to forget is that this year there will be 23 races, the highest number of races in the history of Formula 1," Domenicali was quoted as saying by wtf1.com.

"So I think that we can watch that in the right way, taking the right decisions. We are not in a rus' for that, it's just a matter of tuning in to all the different possibilities that we have in front of us."