MOTORSPORT: Australian Grand Prix could be postponed

The Australian F1 Grand Prix will not be held on March 19-21 as originally planned, according to Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll, with Bahrain set to replace the opening race.

Speaking to Reuters, the move to postpone the Melbourne GP is said to be directly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and fears that tight Australian quarantine measures and other restrictions could still be in place when the race weekend is held in March.

The Australian race is set to now be pushed back to around the fourth quarter of 2021.

“Melbourne has been – it’s not officially announced but it will be – not cancelled but postponed. We will go there sometime in the fall and the first race will be Bahrain,” said Stroll.

Both Formula One and local organisers have yet to make any announcement of the fate of the F1 race held at Albert Park.

According to sources, the rescheduling of Formula One's calendar occurred on Monday in a meeting held over Zoom.

Other changes include moving pre-season testing from Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya to Bahrain but dates have not been confirmed.

After last year's chaotic last-minute cancellation of the Australian GP following a McLaren team member testing positive for the virus, the news Australia will once again not be hosting the F1 opener will be a blow to F1 fans Down Under.

Stroll, who is overseeing his Racing Point F1 outfit morph into the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team, thinks that COVID-19 will continue to disrupt F1 this year.

“I do believe we’re in for a difficult two or three months,” he told Reuters.

“There is a light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine. I think the first few races will be slightly challenging.

“But Formula One management and the FIA, I really take my hat off to them to deliver 17 races as we did last year in 23 weeks, without really any major hiccups, in a very impressive manner.

“I think the worst is behind us and we’ve learnt through last year how to proceed with this year.”