After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Australian Grand Prix was highly successful and organizers reported record attendance: around 419 thousand people visited Albert Park in four days (Thurs to Sunday).
Traditionally, the Melbourne race started the season, and this year Australia took the third leg of the championship after the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but there is no guarantee that this place will be on the calendar in the future.
This is also due to the dissatisfaction of teams who have to fly thousands of kilometers for the sake of one race, as now other stages of the championship are not run in this region of the planet.
“Flying a race to Australia is quite tiring for everyone,” said Sergio Perez, the Mexican driver of Red Bull Racing, who finished second in the Grand Prix yesterday. – We want to come here, but there are some ways to make it easier for everyone.
I have to say that there hasn’t been a race in Australia on the calendar in recent years and I’m sure in Formula 1 they can solve this problem.
A return to the old tradition when the season started with a race in Melbourne is unlikely to be supported by the teams and drivers, they are quite happy with the opportunity to hold winter testing in Bahrain before the first leg of the championship takes place there, on the circuit in Sakhir.
“Now everything has gone well because in Bahrain we are doing winter testing and it makes sense that we stay there until the race,” added Perez.
Australia’s place on the calendar may depend on other grands prix that are or may be held in the East Asian region of the world. Notably after a pause due to the pandemic, the Chinese Grand Prix will return next year and the new contract for the Shanghai race will run until 2025.
This race was usually held in April, but due to the strict measures against Covid-19 that the Chinese government is taking, it is not yet certain that this will be possible in the spring of 2023. Therefore, the podium in Shanghai may be moved to the fall, closer to the dates of the Singapore and Japan Grand Prix. It makes sense to assume that the Australian Grand Prix could also be postponed to the autumn, but this prospect clearly does not suit the organisers.
“We have proven that we can successfully hold Grand Prix both when our podium opens the season and when it is over after the first two races,” Andrew Westacott, chief executive of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, told Reuters. “The time for Formula 1 in Australia is at the beginning of the season.”
When Westacott recalled that teams were unhappy with running a single race in Melbourne that was not linked to other events, Westacott made it clear that Formula 1’s expansion of the championship calendar and the development of new markets inevitably meant they had to to get used to more active travel.
“And riders have less to complain about,” he said.
Source: F1 News
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