Australian Grand Prix chief executive Travis Auld anticipates no impact on this weekend’s Formula 1 season-opener at Melbourne’s Albert Park from the travel issues caused by the conflict in the Middle East.
The US and Israeli bombing of Iran at the weekend was followed by retaliatory strikes on Gulf states with the result that all activity in one of the world’s main aviation hubs has ceased.
Formula 1 teams recently completed pre-season testing in Bahrain and many team personnel were scheduled to pass through Qatar or the United Arab Emirates on their journey to Australia for Sunday’s race.
“No doubts the events of the weekend have thrown out the travel plans for the teams and F1 themselves,” Auld told Fox Sports on Monday.
“F1 are experts at moving people around the world and so they’ve quickly rescheduled flights. I’m told, everyone’s now locked in and arriving within the required timeframes, and so there’ll be no impact on our race.
“But it’s certainly been a busy 48 hours, particularly for F1.”
The season-opener will be followed later in March by races in China and Japan before the first of the Gulf races on the Formula One calendar in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April.
“I’m sure they are thinking ahead to what the implications might be,” he added.
“As it stands at the moment, there are no issues for us, but I’d imagine beyond us, they’ll be thinking about what they might do to their calendar if they need to.”
Auld said that the nature of the Albert Park venue made it unlikely that Melbourne would be able to step in and stage another race if the conflict meant Bahrain or Saudi Arabia were unable to host their rounds.
“Obviously we spent a lot of time constructing this circuit, and straight after the race, we pull it all back down again so the community can use it,” he said.
“They’ll have other plans in place, as you would imagine, for a whole series of reasons.”
Reuters
