Calendar disruption

We are a week away now from the opening Grand Prix of the season at Albert Park in Australia and with the ongoing and ever changing Coranavirus situation that the world is facing understandably there has been questions regarding whether or not the race will be able to go ahead.

Earlier this week the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, the organizers of the event, released a statement saying that the race was still scheduled to take place and that everything was due to run as normal. On Wednesday of this week Victoria’s minister for tourism and sport said he was “hopeful” that the race would take place but ” could not say anything for certainty” so there does seem to be at least a small element of doubt.

While there doesn’t appear to be any restrictions in place to enter Australia it is thought that visitors that have recently been to certain countries will face extra checks such as medical examinations on arrival, the same process seems to have been agreed with the country of Bahrain where the second race of the season will take place. This has been a tricky situation for the sport to deal with as understandably countries are first and foremost concerned with protecting their populations from the risk of infection.

A similar screening process to that agreed with Australia and Bahrain is thought to be being negotiated with Vietnam who will host round three of the championship. Currently that country has a quarantine period for anyone has who visited Italy in the previous 14 days. This could potentially threaten the first ever Vietnamese Grand Prix on the 3- 5 April.

Personnel from Italy are most likely to be effected at present as that country has seen a large outbreak of the virus in the north. This leaves two teams certainly that could face issues with staff being able to travel. Ferrari are of course based in Italy as are Aplha Tauri, and two other teams have links to Italy as well, Haas with their partnership with Italian constructor Dallera and to a lesser extent Alfa Romeo. This team, although representing an Italian brand have their base in Hinwil in Switzerland so may not face the same problems. Added to that there are other third party suppliers to consider such as Italian tyre supplier Pirelli and suppliers of other composts such as brake pads etc.

So although at present the season remains on course to begin next weekend it remain unclear how the rest of the season may be effected. Other championships have already had to cancel or postpone events, the first to do so being being Formula E which had to cancel its April race in Sanya, China. Formaula One’s Chinese Grand Prix has at the moment been postponed, and it remain s unclear if that race will be given a new date. Given the packed calendar this year it is hard to see how they will be able to do this.

Ross Brawn said earlier this week that any races where some teams are unable to compete because of entry restrictions placed on them by the government of that country will not count towards the world championship as this would be unfair. This could lead to us seeing this year the first non-championship Grand Prix since the early eighties.

However the situation develops in the coming weeks and months the sport’s priority must be to ensure the safety of its competitors, personnel and spectators, all other considerations are secondary to this.