Complicated situation
The trailblazer was the WECwhich has the 1812 km of Qatar postponed – which should have opened the World Endurance Championship season – postponing it to a later date; but soon F1 and MotoGP could follow suit. The war that began last Saturday with the bombing of Iran by the USA and Israel and the subsequent missile attacks by the Islamic Republic on the various countries bordering the Persian Gulf are putting the two- and four-wheel paddocks are significantly alarmed. Both championships have already experienced considerable logistical difficulties in starting from Thailand (MotoGP side, with some professionals and sponsors who have not yet managed to leave the country) and in arriving in Australia (F1 side).
Gene’s experience
On the TV program El Larguero, by Cadena SERthe Ferrari ambassador spoke Marc Genewho revealed how complicated the journey to reach Melbourne was: “Most of us were traveling with Emirates and passing through that part of the world – underlined the Sky Sport commentator, referring to the area affected by the conflict – because he is passing through and because there are no planes that can arrive in Australia without refueling”. However, Gené also underlined how it could have gone much worse if the calendar had been that of a couple of years ago, with the first GP scheduled in Bahrain: “We could have been stuck there“, he highlighted.
The problem is that F1 has two consecutive races scheduled in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on the weekends of April 12 and 19 respectively. Gené candidly admitted that there is no certainty that the two GPs can take place: “Australia, China and Japan will definitely do it and then we’ll see. But the FIA must know well in advance, because it takes at least fifteen or twenty days in advance to organize the movements”. If the conflict is not resolved, therefore, there will be serious problems with the Formula 1 calendar for the month of April. From this perspective, the words pronounced yesterday by American President Donald Trump, who said the war should last, are certainly not reassuring.4-5 weeks” – therefore at least until early-mid April – “but it could last even longer“.
Alternative plans
The date of April 12 is the one to be considered with greater attention because the MotoGP Qatar GP is also scheduled at the same time as the F1 Bahrain GP. has contacted some MotoGP teams who have so far all confirmed that they have not received any notice of postponements, cancellations or replacements. Even in this case, however, time is running out and behind the scenes there are those who are already warning to be ready for possible “alternative calendars“In fact, on the table there would be – and this applies to F1 as well as to MotoGP – both the possibility of ‘simply’ canceling the races, and that of trying to find alternative locations, even if the very short notice would make the search anything but simple. For the Circus, tracks like Imola, Portimao and Istanbul Park could represent marketable names, but at the moment these are all suggestions. However, whether it is two or four wheels, time is running out and the more the longer the war continues, the more the chances of keeping the calendars unchanged will be reduced.
