{"id":518601,"date":"2026-03-04T18:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518601\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T18:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:11:20","slug":"dhl-averts-disaster-as-middle-east-conflict-threatens-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518601\/","title":{"rendered":"DHL averts disaster as Middle East conflict threatens race"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Simon Price has bloodshot eyes and the slightly grizzled appearance of a man who has just got the world\u2019s biggest flying circus through a war zone with a couple of hours to spare.<\/p>\n

Price is motor sport event manager for giant logistics company DHL Global Forwarding.<\/p>\n

\"SimonSimon Price (left), DHL motor sport event manager, with Phil Corcoran, managing director of DHL Australia & Papua New Guinea, in the pit lane at the Melbourne Grand Prix.Joe Armao<\/p>\n

His job is to guarantee that the Australian F1 Grand Prix \u2013 like all the GP events he has overseen over the years \u2013 is ready to go when the starter\u2019s flag is scheduled to drop in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

That involves ensuring 1200 tonnes of high-tech race equipment, mobile garages, race cars, engines, fuel, tyres, spare parts, hospitality gear, scores of staff, F1 teams and all the other moving parts of the world\u2019s fastest race are transported across the Earth and oceans to each grand prix venue right on time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s happening 24 times this year across 21 countries and five continents.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Rozalia<\/a><\/p>\n

And this year, with staff and race gear sitting in Bahrain, where F1 teams have been undertaking preseason testing, the US-Israeli attack on Iran very nearly brought all Price\u2019s careful plans undone.<\/p>\n

The Australian Grand Prix \u2013 the first of the season \u2013 will start on March 5. The first attacks on Iran came on March 1, closing Middle East airspace and causing chaos throughout the region.<\/p>\n

Price said he and his team had no advance warning of missiles filling the skies.<\/p>\n

It was, he said, \u201cpure luck\u201d that most air freighters carrying GP people and gear had departed hours before the conflict exploded. All the gear being taken by ocean freighters to Australia and the next two Asian grand prix venues \u2013 China and Japan \u2013 had already sailed.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Oscar<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, significant numbers of staff and racing team members were still \u201cbouncing through the Middle East\u201d on their way to Australia as the war machine revved up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey literally missed it [the outbreak of war] by about two hours, I think, really the actual kick-off,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n

One planeload of critical high-tech equipment for one of the race teams, however, didn\u2019t make it out before air traffic was grounded.<\/p>\n

Frantic arrangements (\u201cwe have a lot of contacts\u201d, said Price, a little mysteriously) meant an air freighter with the gear on board finally arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cDHL contacts and the people there [in the Middle East] have managed to get that freight pulled out from the location it was in, put on an aircraft and sent down here. What\u2019s on that craft? I don\u2019t know exactly off the top my head, but it\u2019s race-critical equipment for one of the racing teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Almost nonchalantly, he added: \u201cWe chartered a plane out of Dubai and we were allowed to punch through airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other last-minute arrangements meant equipment and staff held in Europe were able to transfer from Middle East-bound routes to flights travelling to Australia via Asia.<\/p>\n

Was Price ever concerned the necessary equipment and people wouldn\u2019t arrive in time for Melbourne\u2019s F1 event?<\/p>\n

\u201cNever,\u201d he said, with the certainty of a man who chuckles that he gets to sleep \u201cabout 32 minutes a day\u201d.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"g\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He tends to catch shut-eye on overnight planes between races.<\/p>\n

The moment the F1 race is completed in Melbourne on Sunday, Price will be driven to Melbourne Airport to board an overnight flight to Shanghai and prepare for the Chinese Grand Prix, which begins on March 13.<\/p>\n

Ocean freighters loaded with race equipment were arriving in China as he spoke, and others were on their way to Japan for its grand prix, starting on March 27.<\/p>\n

The tiny gap between Melbourne\u2019s and Shanghai\u2019s events is not unusual.<\/p>\n

The grand prix circuit this year has two triple-headers \u2013 races on three consecutive weekends \u2013 and six double-headers \u2013 races on two consecutive weekends.<\/p>\n

The logistics required to mesh such a schedule together seamlessly involves 52 big trucks in Europe, ocean freighters and a small swarm of jumbo jets \u2013 DHL has moved from Boeing 747s into more efficient 777s.<\/p>\n

Seeking to meet tough environmental targets, the company\u2019s entire fleet of trucks uses biofuels, which the company says has reduced carbon emissions by an average of 83 per cent compared with diesel-driven counterparts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, sleep for organisers like Price, for whom a war is simply part of an endless logistical puzzle, will surely be scarce.<\/p>\n

The Bahrain circuit is already set up in readiness for its scheduled GP on April 10-12 \u2013 on the chance the war will have eased by then.<\/p>\n

Price, who has kept the show on the road through previous conflicts, natural disasters and a pandemic, simply shrugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\"TonyTony Wright<\/a> is an associate editor and special writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-518601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}