Australian Grand Prix cancelled again due to COVID-19

This year’s rescheduled Australian Grand Prix has been cancelled, but the state government has vowed it will be the last major sporting event in Victoria to be called off as a result of the pandemic.

Premier Daniel Andrews is banking on all of Australia having been offered a vaccine by the time the Australian Open starts in January, removing the need for the quarantine requirements that proved a hurdle too far for the Formula One grand prix, which was to have been held in November.

The message that greeted fans at Albert Park in March 2020 now applies for 2021 too.Credit: Joe Armao

Announcing the decision to cancel the race along with October’s Moto GP on Phillip Island, Victoria’s Tourism and Sports Minister, Martin Pakula, said on Tuesday that attempting to accommodate 1600 crew and racers from overseas would have been “extremely difficult”.

He pointed to low vaccination rates, national cabinet’s decision to halve international arrival caps for returning Australians and Formula One requiring a decision on the event by the end of the week as the crucial factors.

“I completely understand that Formula One needs certainty, and if we can’t give them that sort of assurance, then they have to find an alternative venue for the race,” Mr Pakula said. “I fully expect that these events will occur in 2022.”

The decision to cancel the Melbourne race this year came after recent Formula One races at Le Castellet in France and two at Spielberg in Austria were held before thousands of spectators.

In January, Melbourne’s grand prix was moved from its usual March date to November 21 this year. The 2020 race was cancelled.

Under the terms of a contract signed until 2025, the Victorian government pays the Formula One organisers tens of millions of dollars a year for Melbourne to be able to host the grand prix. Mr Pakula said the government was still negotiating whether the state would have to pay this year’s licence fee.

The grand prix was said to have injected almost $40 million into Victoria’s economy when the state government last quantified its value in 2011, though Mr Pakula said the financial boost would have been less this year with international and interstate tourism limited.

The grand prix was called off in Melbourne last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.Credit: Justin McManus

Sporting tours such as the Ashes at the end of the year would be able to continue because of the smaller number of players required to quarantine, Mr Pakula said, while the Melbourne Cup might lose some foreign competitors but would go ahead as planned.

“I see no reason for anyone to be concerned about them,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Andrews said he was confident the Australian Open would go ahead in late January because the country will hopefully have hit its “magic number” of 70 to 80 per cent vaccinations by then.

“At that point, that critical mass, then we’re not locking down any more. We’re in a very different set of circumstances … we have many more options and we perhaps have quarantine that looks very, very different.”

Crowds in Spielberg, Austria, last weekend for the grand prix there.Credit: Getty Images

International arrivals caps will be halved this month so that Victoria receives 500 people a week, a cut championed by Mr Andrews at national cabinet.

Mr Pakula said health advice was taken into account and the grand prix had not been cancelled as a way of avoiding the criticism the government received in February when about 1000 Australian Open players and support staff received special treatment while tens of thousands of Australians remained stranded overseas.

“Politics doesn’t play a role,” he said. “It’s that we’ve got a situation now where there are circumstances in place that we simply could not have anticipated back in January, both in regards to vaccination numbers and the slashing of international arrivals. And they just don’t lend themselves to 1600 people coming in.”

Victoria’s acting Chief Health Officer, Daniel O’Brien, said while the state’s public health team assessed COVID-safe plans for events it does not make the decisions.

“It’s a decision between government and the actual grand prix corporation itself,” Professor O’Brien said.

“We provided advice around the plan, but no specific thing … to say that it can’t go ahead.”

Former premier Jeff Kennett, who attracted the grand prix from South Australia to Melbourne in 1996, said he was “profoundly disappointed” by the cancellations and felt particularly for Phillip Island losing the economic boon of the Moto GP.

”My great worry now is for the Australian Open, which we held under trying circumstances this year,” he said.

“The decisions made today must be a wake-up call to our political leaders to get their act together and ensure that we do get vaccinations right by that time.”

The former Liberal premier said there was always a risk Victoria could lose the Formula One event following two consecutive cancellations.

“The reputational damage for Australia and Victoria in the eyes of those overseas is immense,” he said.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said it was unlikely his state would swoop on this year’s grand prix and return the race to where it was held from 1985 to 1995.

“For the very same reasons that Victoria is finding it difficult, we are not prepared to have hundreds and hundreds of drivers and their staff coming into Adelaide without doing the 14 days of quarantine,” he said. “It would be the exact same sticking point here in South Australia.”

Mr Andrews said he was not worried by the threat of losing the grand prix, a threat he said had existed for the Australian Open if Melbourne had not hosted it this year, because there were various F1 races each year.

Singapore and Canada have also been forced to cancel their grand prix event this year and Andrew Westacott, chief executive of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, said Formula One “take it in their stride that there are challenges at the global border level”.

Next year’s race at Albert Park is set to take place in April, one month after its usual slot, meaning Australia will lose its mantle of hosting the first race of the season in 2022.

The Grand Prix Corporation had presented a COVID-safe plan to the state government with hopes of the event going ahead.

F1 crews have travelled and lived in bubbles this season and a key sticking point was their reluctance to undertake 14 days of quarantine in an already packed schedule. The race before Albert Park, in Brazil, would have finished just 12 days prior.

Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo said on Tuesday that the cancellation was heartbreaking for all drivers but they understood the reasons.

“I normally smile … but it’s hard. I’m really gutted we’re not going back home to Oz this year,” he said. “For me personally, I can’t wait to have the chance to race at home again, and it’ll be even sweeter when we do because it’s been so long.”

With Sam McClure

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