F1’s fans feeling the pain

But GP may be held later

MOTORSPORT: Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Paul Little is hopeful the Albert Park Formula One race can be held later this year following yesterday’s forced cancellation of the event.

Just hours before the cars were scheduled to hit the track for opening practice, F1 announced the race had been called off.

The event was thrown into chaos on Thursday night after McLaren pulled out of the race due to one one of its team members returning a positive test for coronavirus.

Little apologised to fans for not being able to put the race on, but was hopeful it could be revived later this year.

“From the Australian Grand Prix point of view, we just want to say sorry to our fans, and the health and safety and welfare of teams and people, the community generally, has to take precedence and it will and has,” Little said.

“We look forward to hopefully being able to run this event at some later stage. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Australian GP Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott also was hopeful the race could be held later this year.

“I’ve learnt in the world of Formula One, you never say never. We clearly have been working on the here and now with (F1 chief) Chase Carey and the FIA and Formula One,” Westacott said.

“We’ll work through matters but we haven’t started to think ... it’s clearly a normal topic of discussion that will happen in the fullness of time.”

Westacott said the word “cancellation” had been used deliberately in announcing the race was off.

“It’s important to make sure that the fans that are here in Melbourne ... knew it wasn’t a postponement or didn’t get the impression it was a postponement for some period of hours or days or something,” he said.

Australian F1 star Daniel Ricciardo said he was “devastated” he could not compete at his home GP.

“Ultimately though the right decision has been made and I think everyone can understand this is something we’ve never seen before,” he said.

“Sorry to all fans who came out for the support.”

The Albert Park event was set to feature the second round of the Supercars Championship season.

That race has been cancelled too and Supercars will look to reschedule another championship event later in the year.