McLaren withdraws from Australian GP

[Whyzars]

News just coming out now.

No word yet on whether the GP goes ahead but there seems to be a lot of pressure to cancel the entire event.

If they cancel the Australian GP the entire season could disappear - one race at a time. :(

Stay safe everyone...

[Nitrodaze]

It is all happening now! Koro

[Nitrodaze]

News just coming out now.

No word yet on whether the GP goes ahead but there seems to be a lot of pressure to cancel the entire event.

If they cancel the Australian GP the entire season could disappear - one race at a time. :(

Stay safe everyone...

Well if the outbreak increases, there is no alternative but to only have televised races at locations with low risk of the virus. All indications suggest that the outbreak is escalating. This may well be a televised season. You never know, other teams may well follow Mclaren out of contention. Chances are it might be a shortened season with a reduced team presence on race day for most of the races this season. I hope a vaccine can be found quickly enough to curb this outbreak.

Bear in mind that F1 is the ideal conduit to spread this virus around the globe as an international sport that courses its way through some countries with known cases of infections. The mere fact that there is a known case of an infected individual within one of the racing teams underlines this fact. The entire season is really in doubt to be honest.

Of course there are huge financial implications for this state of affairs. Venues that invested in this season are at risk of not getting any return on their investment. This l think is the greatest pressure for the show to go on.

[COD]

Autosport allrady speculating that the race will not happen. And Brawn had commented, that without all teams it will be a non championship event. So....

[Bagwan]

Autosport allrady speculating that the race will not happen. And Brawn had commented, that without all teams it will be a non championship event. So....

Brawn said that it would be a problem if a team was not allowed to enter a hosting country , not if they withdrew themselves .

That said , now the NBA has shut down , and many other large events are either cancelled or running with no crowd all around the world , it seems that not even money is more important than human lives .

Today is the last moment to "pull the handbrake" as Vettel has stated .

[N. Jones]

This is a bad situation all around. Has there been talk of cancelling the race?

[Tazio]

This is a bad situation all around. Has there been talk of cancelling the race?
Definitely! I believe it is a forgone conclusion, and a good thing, but
Dog-blast-it !!!, I was looking forward to the start of the season! :angryfire :dork:

[truefan72]

To be honest. I kinda saw this coming but hoped that it would not become an issue.
But right now Australia is a hot spot for the virus and having them run the race seems like an unnecessary risk to me.
Right after testing they should have revised the schedule and or delayed the start of the season.

I know it is a hassle for teams in terms of travel arrangements etc. but those were going to have to be changed anyway with all the restrictions etc.
Starting the season a month later and then finding ways to compress the schedule might be the way to go. Perhaps getting some financial assistance for rescheduling etc. for the venues and the team's travel budget would have been a good thing to do from liberty media.
As of right now, i think the GP will get cancelled and probably put on hiatus for a month

[Whyzars]

I believe that there is to be a meeting in the morning between politicians, management and medicos. I would expect that the medicos will have a big say. They've already started racing on the track on Thursday with F1 practice Friday.

Obviously, in hindsight, if they were going to cancel the race then they should've done it weeks ago. If they cancel it now, they will still have a lot of people who've flown in and are going to be hanging around pub's and hotels anyway so what is to be gained by cancelling the race weekend.

If protecting the wider populace from "outsiders" bringing in the virus then they've totally missed that boat. I really can't see how cancelling the weekend would significantly reduce any outcome that isn't going to happen in some form because everyone is here already. If they're not at the track they'll be everywhere else in the city.

A lot of money has been spent and maybe individual people should be allowed to make their own decision on this. With McLaren pulling out they may swing the decision regarding F1 race points.

I will be watching on TV and don't know how I would feel if I had tickets and had flown in. Tough one. All the stakeholders will be around the table in the morning and I don't envy their positions at all.

Its going to be a difficult year.

[The Black Knight]

Oz GP cancelled - not announced yet.

[Nitrodaze]

Definitely! I believe it is a forgone conclusion, and a good thing, but
Dog-blast-it !!!, I was looking forward to the start of the season! :angryfire :dork:

Yea grrrrr! I was looking forward to finding out the actual pecking order after an inconclusive winter testing.

[truefan72]

autosport is reporting that the Australian GP is going to be cancelled

[Bagwan]

autosport is reporting that the Australian GP is going to be cancelled

You'd better change that bonus race for the FGP then .

[Whyzars]

Latest this morning etc... deleted


Edit: F1 cancelled it seems...


Delay in letting people know is puzzling. Punters were lining up outside the gate all morning.

Seb and Kimi were on a plane 3 hours ago apparently.


"Fuster Cluck" might best describe it - Did I spell that correctly?

[Nitrodaze]

It seems Bahrain and Hanoi may also not happen under the current very fluid circumstances. Apparently, fourteen more Mclaren personel are in quarantine. Chance are that the first race of the season may take place in Netherlands in may.

I think they might try to get the closed race in Bahrain done if the F1 establishment can persuade the teams to come on board with the idea. Street circuit like Hanoi would be less likely as a closed race is not possible.

[zako85]

With nothing better to do, I think I'll watch the second season of Netflix F1 documentary. Everyone please stay safe and get well.

[Nitrodaze]

All said and done, we have to commend the F1 establishment for taking the hard decision of stopping the first four races. It couldn't have been easy considering the consequential cost of not having these races. They had the courage to take a hard a decision and l applaud them.

I also think Mercedes and Hamilton should be commended for taking up the fight for the moral decision which would have been seen as an unpopular stance to make in the thick of the discussions of whether to race or not. It is certainly refreshing and re-enforces my fate in humanity that there are good people out there that would stand up for what is right and proper. And they do so unintimidated by the powerful forces that they must stand up against. That is not to undermine the incredible weight that both parties have in the F1 world. But it is still great to see.

[gm99]

All races up to and including the Monaco GP at the end of May now cancelled/postponed. Officially, we're in the summer break now, so races could be held in August, between Hungary and Belgium.

[Bagwan]

They need 8 races to make an official season .
It may not happen .

If it does , do the other teams now have some time to perhaps create their own DAS systems , or will they be too busy making ventilators ?

There's no meat on the shelves at our local grocery store .
And , no toilet paper .
And no pasta .
No canned soup .
No hand sanitizer .

It's pretty weird world time all over .

But , I'm snug here , waiting it out , off-grid in the woods .

[The Black Knight]

They need 8 races to make an official season .
It may not happen .

If it does , do the other teams now have some time to perhaps create their own DAS systems , or will they be too busy making ventilators ?

There's no meat on the shelves at our local grocery store .
And , no toilet paper .
And no pasta .
No canned soup .
No hand sanitizer .

It's pretty weird world time all over .

But , I'm snug here , waiting it out , off-grid in the woods .

I am in my house overlooking the sea. I can work indefinitely from home and I’ve always feared a zombie (type) apocalypse so have always a basement fully stocked up. I can self isolate for two years without leaving the house. I’m just gonna stroll down to the beach every day until this all blows over with my wife and kids. Could do with some F1 though. Continually watching reruns is boring. It does somewhat strike me as alarming when I am looking for entertaining races that I really want to see again... I have to go back a lot of years.

Watched Hungary 98 last night- simply amazing what Schumacher did there.

[Bagwan]

I am in my house overlooking the sea. I can work indefinitely from home and I’ve always feared a zombie (type) apocalypse so have always a basement fully stocked up. I can self isolate for two years without leaving the house. I’m just gonna stroll down to the beach every day until this all blows over with my wife and kids. Could do with some F1 though. Continually watching reruns is boring. It does somewhat strike me as alarming when I am looking for entertaining races that I really want to see again... I have to go back a lot of years.

Watched Hungary 98 last night- simply amazing what Schumacher did there.

It's all gonna be different from now on .

My wife and I have discovered the Wii game device we gave to our son years ago ."Need for Speed -Nitro" is a riot . Who knew ?
And , we've got ten acres of pine bush for our dog , Enzo , to take us walking , so it's not all just couch time .

We're on a route for jets heading out to western Canada here , which kinda drives Enzo nuts sometimes , as he barks at con-trails .
But he's been pretty calm of late as there aren't any , or very few .

I guess that's a silver(or perhaps green) lining for this moment in time , as mother earth gets a little time to recover as well .

Be safe all .

[The Black Knight]

It's all gonna be different from now on .

My wife and I have discovered the Wii game device we gave to our son years ago ."Need for Speed -Nitro" is a riot . Who knew ?
And , we've got ten acres of pine bush for our dog , Enzo , to take us walking , so it's not all just couch time .

We're on a route for jets heading out to western Canada here , which kinda drives Enzo nuts sometimes , as he barks at con-trails .
But he's been pretty calm of late as there aren't any , or very few .

I guess that's a silver(or perhaps green) lining for this moment in time , as mother earth gets a little time to recover as well .

Be safe all .
Be safe man.

[Nitrodaze]

Baku is postponed, Canada GP under threat. If these two get cancelled, there would be 13 races to get the 2020 season ratified as a proper competition. Eight races minimum is required, so there is still a chance of some racing this season.

Keep Well people!

[Lord Flasheart]

Bit of a nightmare for the fans, the teams, and the organisers. We were supposed to be doing an organised driving tour to the monaco grand prix (https://www.grandprixgrandtours.com/monaco-grand-prix-road-trip/) (now cancelled) so just doing driving holiday (https://www.grandprixgrandtours.com/) to monaco/italy instead in September when it will hopefully have calmed down a bit. Stay safe all!