MOTORSPORT: Earlier Grand Prix - for safety

The Australian Grand Prix start time has been brought forward on safety grounds in the wake of a horror Formula One crash 3½ months ago.

Contrary to Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott’s insistence that the March 15 race would begin at 5pm, the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), has announced that the Melbourne race will start at 4pm.

The FIA edict overrides an arrangement between the AGPC and Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management for a later start in recent years to pitch the race into F1’s European heartland at a friendlier time for TV viewers.

The FIA has been concerned about GPs ending in fading light since Jules Bianchi’s crash in the Japanese GP last October 5.

The Frenchman has severe head injuries after his 700kg Marussia car ran off the Suzuka circuit in treacherously wet conditions and bad light, hitting - at 126kmh - a 6.5-tonne mobile crane recovering the Sauber car that German Adrian Sutil had crashed at the same spot the previous lap.

A 10-member FIA panel that investigated that crash recommended that GPs on circuits without floodlights for night races should start at least four hours before sunset or dusk.

The 4pm Melbourne race start won’t be a full four hours before sunset in Melbourne on Sunday, March 15, which will be at 7.40pm. But it’s most of the way there.

We have alluded to the likelihood of a change on this site three times over the last two weeks. This was in spite of the AGPC’s Westacott being quoted by Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper on January 10 saying a 5pm start was set in stone

“The race time will remain at 5pm as per agreement with the AGPC and Formula One Management, which means Melbourne, as the opening race of the season, airs in Asia at lunchtime and Europe at breakfast,” Westacott said then.

Qualifying on Saturday, March 14, will start at 5pm - but that session only goes about an hour, rather than the usual 1½ -2 hours of the Sunday race .

The panel that reported on Bianchi’s accident in Japan included the president of the FIA’s safety commission Peter Wright, former F1 team principals Ross Brawn and Stefano Domenicali, Brazilian dual world champion driver Emerson Fittipaldi and Austrian ex-F1 driver Alex Wurz, now the president of the Grand Prix Drivers Association.

It seems that the FIA has not yet enshrined the four-hour 'window' of light in its regulations, although it immediately endorsed the recommendations of the 396-page Bianchi panel’s report.

The start times of four other GPs this season also have been brought forward an hour - Malaysia to 3pm local time and China, Japan and Russia to 2pm local time.

Melbourne’s GP, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, began at 2pm most of the time but shifted to 3.30pm once before several years at 5pm.

The move to 4pm means a 5am start for TV viewers in F1’s British heartland and, without serious incidents, the race will be telecast there largely before dawn, ending between 6.30am and 7am. London sunrise on Melbourne race day will be at 6.13am.

The race won’t be screened live on free-to-air TV in Britain this year. Sky Channel there has the rights to show all F1 races live, while the free-to-air BBC will screen only half the 20 races live (and not Melbourne), with delayed telecasts and highlights packages of the others.