Australian Grand Prix organisers wants to return as season opener in 2022
F1 News
- GPblog.com
The 2021 season is once again not going as pre-planned and the opening race in Australia has been moved to November 21 and will play a part in the final stint of the season. If it's up to the Australians, this is a one-time change.
Not forever
Martin Pakula, the Victorian government's Minister of Sport and Tourism, spoke on Wednesday about the postponed Australian Grand Prix. According to him, the intention is that the race will simply return to the calendar as the season opener in 2022. “It’s not forever", Racefans.net quoted him as saying. “We’ll be certainly very keen to go back to our traditional season-opening slot in 2022.”
Strict quarantine
Pakula also cited the Australian Open, the tennis tournament taking place in Melbourne next month, in his speech. In total, some 1,500 players, support staff, officials and media must be quarantined in their hotels for 14 days for this event.
“I accept the circumstances in F1 are somewhat different,” Pakula said, “but had they not been able to do that we may have been having a similar conversation with tennis.” The organisers hope that the November event can now be held as close to normal as possible.