This is a new cancellation due to Covid-19.
For the second year in a row, the Australian Formula 1 and MotoGP Grand Prix will not take place, due to logistical constraints posed in particular by restrictions on entry into Australian territory, the organizers announced on Tuesday. .
Paul Little, chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, said in a statement a "deeply disappointing" decision, adding: "We understand the challenge for Australia of international travel restrictions and importance of vaccination.
The F1 GP, which usually opens the season, had already been moved to November 21 in Melbourne and the MotoGP GP to October 24 at the Phillip Island circuit.
We regret to announce that the 2021 #AusGP has been canceled due to restrictions & logistical challenges relating to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. # F1 https://t.co/aDmCA8s6nx
- F1 Australian Grand Prix (@ausgrandprix) July 6, 2021
Australia, one of the countries having best controlled Covid-19 in the world, with barely 30,000 people infected since the start of the pandemic, maintains a very strict health protocol: everyone arriving from abroad must observe a 14 day quarantine.
The positioning of the F1 GP, sandwiched between that of Sao Paulo and that of Saudi Arabia, did not plead for the maintenance of the event on the Australian side, Brazil being the second country most affected by Covid-19 in the world, with more than half a million deaths during the pandemic.
The calendar was also a problem: the teams would have arrived in Australia a long week after the race in Sao Paulo, in violation of local health protocol.
The Moto GP event was scheduled two weeks after the Thai event.
But as the stables arrive several days earlier, the sanitary rules in force on the island-continent have again not been respected.
The "confident" F1 boss
Dan Andrews, the Prime Minister of the State of Victoria, where Melbourne and Phillip Island are located, had recently raised the threat of a cancellation of the two GPs due to the low vaccination rate of the Australian population and the very high reduction in the number of international flights to Australia. "Now is not the best, and that makes things very complicated," he warned. “We are working closely with our F1 and MotoGP partners. But in times of pandemic, there are things that are possible and others not. Paradoxically, most Australian stadiums have reopened and are open to the public. But the country is currently worried about an epidemic resurgence linked to the highly contagious variant Delta.
Read alsoCovid-19: Bahrain offers to vaccinate Grand Prix staff, F1 refuses
F1 boss Stefano Domenicali said he was "confident" that he could find another home for his sport to replace Australia in order to "offer a 23-race season", as initially planned.
“We have a number of options to explore,” he said in a statement.
In 2020, the F1 race was canceled at the last minute in the early hours of the new coronavirus, after the discovery of a positive case at McLaren, when free practice was about to begin.
The 2020 MotoGP Australian GP was subsequently canceled, for the same reasons.
