THE F1 COVID THREAD: Will GP be cancelled?

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Is this part of a recipe instruction....? Turn down the gas.....

Joey Barton has certainly done that! (Apologies, terrible football related pun!)

[Alan52]

Joe Saward wrote in his blog today that he has heard that unless F1 can run the race at Albert Park next April they will invoke clauses in their contract and walk away from Australia forever.
Coming to the crunch on this issue.The Aus Open tennis players won’t quarantine again and the 4th Grand Slam might leave Australia and never return.Meanwhile the top English cricket players have said they won’t do the quarantine and won’t tour if they and their families can’t enter without this.Meanwhile Cricket Australia have said the Ashes will go ahead even if England can only send a tenth rate team.

[chavez]

Originally Posted by Alan52

Joe Saward wrote in his blog today that he has heard that unless F1 can run the race at Albert Park next April they will invoke clauses in their contract and walk away from Australia forever.
Coming to the crunch on this issue.The Aus Open tennis players won’t quarantine again and the 4th Grand Slam might leave Australia and never return.Meanwhile the top English cricket players have said they won’t do the quarantine and won’t tour if they and their families can’t enter without this.Meanwhile Cricket Australia have said the Ashes will go ahead even if England can only send a tenth rate team.

There is little on the horizon to suggest any of this can be averted.

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by chavez

There is little on the horizon to suggest any of this can be averted.

It will all come down to Dan Andrew’s determination and ability to force through some sort of non quarantine bubble for situations like this.Maybe something will be said as part of his living with Covid plan he is supposed to release this Sunday.
The biggest thing going for Albert Park is that they would be beyond mortified to permanently lose the Aus Open tennis.The decision about F1 will just ride along in it’s slipstream.

[S griffin]

I do hope this is not the end of the Aussie GP forever. With the great fanbase down under, it would be a shame if you Aussies had to travel a long way if you wanted to see a GP race in the future

[Richard C]

"Forever" is a long time.

I think most people (myself included) generally felt there would be a much more "hard" beginning and ending to the pandemic. It's a pain in a rear, but a vaccine will be developed and we will move on. But it hasn't worked out that way. So the end will be much more soft. And even then, much like 9/11 was an inflection point from a security perspective (travel complexities), I expect this pandemic will be another inflection point in which there is a before and after and not a beginning and end.

So we are in a transition phase between the initial discomforts and an eventual "new normal". What the new normal will look like is hard to say. But I fully expect that it will allow for international sporting events across the globe (with some restrictions). The deeper we get into this, the more homogenous the responses by various countries will become. However some will still lag a bit. But in general the "rules" for what it takes to make an event like this happen will become known, somewhat consistent and hopefully without significant risk of cancellation.

In short, for the near term, I can see the plug being pulled on the Australian GP with no future date set. The sport and it's associated calendar needs stability. But I can also see some day in the future in which it would reappear on the calendar.

Richard

[john ruston]

Understand flights between UK and Aus commence in November?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by john ruston

Understand flights between UK and Aus commence in November?

I don't think so, John, as the Aussie government only recently announced that their borders were to remain closed until at least December.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by john ruston

Understand flights between UK and Aus commence in November?

On 2 September, Qantas announced their return to international flight schedules. From mid-December 2021, flights are expected to resume between Australia and Fiji, Singapore, the USA, Japan, the UK, Canada, and New Zealand. In February 2022, Hong Kong is expected to be added to the list. From April 2022 onwards, flight are expected to continue to Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and South Africa.

However..... the Federal Govt have said the trigger point is 80% fully vaccinated, (currently at just shy of 50%) with the possibility of reduced (7 instead of 14 day) quarantine, and double vaxxed Aus residents MAYBE being allowed the home quarantine rather than in a 'designated pen'.

First incoming cabs off the rank will be the tens of thousands of Aussies still stranded o/s awaiting repatriation with their families.

In the meantime our numbers are still 'worsening' from a new infections pov.....

The cynical side of me will add that with Federal Elections due in the first half of the year a certain amount of 'all is wonderful' political propaganda is being circulated. Spend Christmas with your family being high on that list....

Currently we cant even travel interstate. In fact in Victoria we cant even travel more than 5 klms from home atm, even to go to the supermarket.! (Im 30klms from the airport!)

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Alan52

Joe Saward wrote in his blog today that he has heard that unless F1 can run the race at Albert Park next April they will invoke clauses in their contract and walk away from Australia forever.
Coming to the crunch on this issue.The Aus Open tennis players won’t quarantine again and the 4th Grand Slam might leave Australia and never return.Meanwhile the top English cricket players have said they won’t do the quarantine and won’t tour if they and their families can’t enter without this.Meanwhile Cricket Australia have said the Ashes will go ahead even if England can only send a tenth rate team.

I can see some political manouvering going on here and it goes something like this. The promoters can't see any way they can be sure that the Victorian Govt can be persuaded to allow the F1 without quarantine so they persuade Liberty to threaten the loss of the race to Melbourne to get the Govt to reconsider their quarantine requirements. The someone gives old Joe a call with a hot tip so the word can be spread in the media. Tin foils stuff? Not in Oz, par for the course really.

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by Casper

I can see some political manouvering going on here and it goes something like this. The promoters can't see any way they can be sure that the Victorian Govt can be persuaded to allow the F1 without quarantine so they persuade Liberty to threaten the loss of the race to Melbourne to get the Govt to reconsider their quarantine requirements. The someone gives old Joe a call with a hot tip so the word can be spread in the media. Tin foils stuff? Not in Oz, par for the course really.

Except the promoters are the government.
Feds would have a say in any exemption but if you think Morrison gives a rats about any sports event outside his NRL team-and that is probably only for appearances to show his “man of the people” facade-you are mistaken.At this point it is more likely he would go out of his way to stick it to the Victorian government in any way he can.
Having the decimation of international sport in Australia sitting with the vaccine “it’s not a race” stroll out,the quarantine on the cheap and the totally insecure able to be forged in 10 minutes vaccine passports they have introduced is just another small Covid blip on his road to re-election.
Without the elephant in the room of the tennis I think Albert Park would be stuffed but I remain hopeful that what they are devising for that will enable F1 to happen.

[Casper]

F1 is a independent stand alone board that is affected by any government policy as I understand it and if they have to back the state government into a corner I am sure they would. I understand the government funds the event and are not the promoters in the true sense of the term. The government had to bail out the tennis event last year when they had a huge shortfall in funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and I doubt they would go there again even if the players agreed.

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by Casper

F1 is a independent stand alone board that is affected by any government policy as I understand it and if they have to back the state government into a corner I am sure they would. I understand the government funds the event and are not the promoters in the true sense of the term. The government had to bail out the tennis event last year when they had a huge shortfall in funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and I doubt they would go there again even if the players agreed.

By promoters I meant who financially pays for it and who signs the contract.While the GP Corporation is independent in terms of day to day operating management they operate at the “pleasure” of the government.
Also with the tennis example Tennis Australia this year had to use up nearly all of their financial reserves to stage the tournament.The reason they proceeded with this unsustainable model was that they were worried about Australia permanently losing the tournament.Yet here we are again.

[Oldtony]

If the calendar dates Joe Saward predicts are true Albert Park will be in April, following Bahrain & Saudi rather than its normal march date.
The tennis is normally end Jan early Feb. That provides a significant difference in the timing to get things up and running.
NSW and Vic are getting a pretty rapid roll out of the vaccine going now and targets to open up those States early December are looking to be achievable, and given that April is another 4 months down the track that is probably achievable to get things open in those States.
The political problem is the Feds who will be running in election mode and carrying a lot of baggage over quarantine failures and missed vaccine targets and their flip flop attitude to shut downs.
They have just rolled out the nuclear option on the submarine fleet so they will be pretty desperate not to look like they are risking a significant ramp up of cases in the community.

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by Oldtony

If the calendar dates Joe Saward predicts are true Albert Park will be in April, following Bahrain & Saudi rather than its normal march date.
The tennis is normally end Jan early Feb. That provides a significant difference in the timing to get things up and running.
NSW and Vic are getting a pretty rapid roll out of the vaccine going now and targets to open up those States early December are looking to be achievable, and given that April is another 4 months down the track that is probably achievable to get things open in those States.
The political problem is the Feds who will be running in election mode and carrying a lot of baggage over quarantine failures and missed vaccine targets and their flip flop attitude to shut downs.
They have just rolled out the nuclear option on the submarine fleet so they will be pretty desperate not to look like they are risking a significant ramp up of cases in the community.

I agree with all of this.The issue won’t be vaccination rates but the approval of quarantine free entry for tennis players and F1 teams.Although the GP is nearly 3 months later than when the tennis starts if they can’t work out something for the tennis they won’t for the GP as those political fundamentals you mentioned wouldn’t have changed.I’m guessing early November is the deadline for the tennis.The ECB have already put announcement of the Ashes squad back from when it is normally done after the last Test of the home season until late October as they face the entire team and coaching staff withdrawing after talks this week,

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Mod: To avoid the spread of misinformation if quoting specific information or numbers please bare in mind relevance to the thread.

Also clarify whether this information or numbers are heresay, quoted in press … please link article, or official government figures …again please link source

[Oldtony]

To the mods,
I can see why you may be concerned about misinformation being spread related to Covid-19 in this discussion but I can't see any examples that may be doing this in recent posts re the AGP.
Statistical info is a fast moving target with rapid roll out of vaccine and changing government policies as is the case everywhere in the world.
Australian statistics and news can be found at the fact checking site
https://www.covid-19data.com.au updated daily.


Of course discussion of the plans, motives and reactions of Federal and State governments invites opinion that may or may not be based in fact.
That's politics.

[Adam43]

It’s been deleted.

Everyone please take note of the moderator points. They’re looking after the forum, there is a reason why this place isn’t like Twitter. If you need to raise an issue please contact any of the moderators or the admin. See FAQ.

Back to the topic.

[Alan52]

Qatar to replace Albert Park?
They have a contract but no slot in the calendar.
They have moved their Moto GP race forward 3 weeks which would give them a 5 week gap between that and April 10.
At the very least they will be sitting there as a reserve for 2022 if Australia won’t allow quarantine free entry.Thereafter taking over that slot permanently.

[S griffin]

There's been talk of Qatar taking the empty slot this year, so we'll see

[billy bleach]

Ashes in doubt - as predicted-Tennis and Aus GP ...no chance

[Skam85]

Aus GP and the Aus Open will happen in 2022. Take it to the bank

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Aus GP and the Aus Open will happen in 2022. Take it to the bank

I wouldn't bank on it.
I don't think anything will return to the way it was.
It wouldn't surprise me if three or four years from now motorsport did not even exist.

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Aus GP and the Aus Open will happen in 2022. Take it to the bank

Not in an Election year...

[crmalcolm]

Scott Morrison:

'I don't see a great deal of difference in skilled workers or students who will be able to come to Australia when you reach those vaccination rates [80%]. Those who are coming for that purpose when it comes to their profession, which is playing cricket, I don't see the difference between that and someone who's coming as a skilled, qualified engineer or someone who's coming to be ready for study.'

What do I read from that? Tennis and F1 will certainly be included in the same bracket as professional cricketers - and arguably the situation is less complex because there is no intra-country travel for F1. The Ashes dates are not really in question, but the locations are dependant on state rules.

Australia's vaccination figures (fully vaccinated) have risen from 10% to nearly 40% in two months, the current trend indicates that the 80% figure will be reached before the England players have to travel in November.

As I see it, the biggest hurdle to F1 (and tennis) is currently in terms of scheduling, and fitting in a quarantine period if still mandatory. Currently the Aus GP is scheduled just two weeks after Saudi Arabia, leaving too short a window for quarantine. Moving it right a week would effectively mean the teams are on the road for the first six weeks of the season, with just a week turnaround between China and Miami.

My prediction would be that either:

A shuffle of the opening rounds, to start the season in Aus.
A shuffle of the October / November rounds, with Aus being scheduled a week before the final round in Abu Dhabi.