{"id":520232,"date":"2026-03-05T11:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/520232\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T11:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:54:12","slug":"aston-martin-says-drivers-risk-nerve-damage-from-new-cars-martin-pakula-feared-war-in-the-middle-east-would-stop-some-f1-teams-from-reaching-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/520232\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Martin says drivers risk nerve damage from new cars, Martin Pakula feared war in the Middle East would stop some F1 teams from reaching Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newey\u2019s comments came after Australian Grand Prix Corporation chair Martin Pakula conceded he was fearful some Formula 1 teams would not make to make it to Melbourne<\/a> because of the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

After denials all week from grand prix officials that the Australian Grand Prix could be impacted by the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US<\/a>, Pakula revealed on Thursday morning that it had been \u201ca hairy weekend\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have war breaking out on our bingo card of things that might go wrong,\u201d Pakula said at the Victorian Chamber of Commerce Grand Prix breakfast.<\/p>\n

He received a phone call at 11.45pm on Saturday night from Stefano Domenicali, president and chief executive of Formula 1, and thought it was unlikely to be good news.<\/p>\n

Israel and the US attacked Iran in a joint military strike on Saturday, killing the country\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> and attacking targets in Tehran and other major cities.<\/p>\n

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The bombings prompted the closure of the major airport hubs in Doha and Dubai \u2013 which are key airports and flight pathways for many F1 teams and staff<\/a> travelling to Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Travel arrangements from Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, and the United Kingdom were among the key changes required after original flights were cancelled.<\/p>\n

Pakula said he was always confident the race would go ahead but thought it might have to proceed without some of the teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were moments when we weren\u2019t sure all the teams were going to get here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI thought rather than 11 teams on the grid, we might have had nine or 10, which would have been very, very disappointing but wouldn\u2019t have stopped the event going ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pakula said he didn\u2019t want to stage a \u201ccompromised event\u201d given the amount of work that had been put in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been such a shame,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would have been so disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was relieved when all teams made it to Melbourne. <\/p>\n

However, there were still several key F1 personnel missing from Albert Park.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation presented \u201cIn Her Corner\u201d, a lunch celebrating women in motor sport, held in honour of Red Bull principal strategist Hannah Schmitz and Haas engineer Laura Muller who will have turn six of the circuit dedicated to them.<\/p>\n

While Muller was there for the lunch and Q&A session, Schmitz, who works with four-time world champion Max Verstappen<\/a>, was missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHannah is still making her way around the world, I believe, with the trouble of flight disruption,\u201d F1 presenter Ruth Buscombe told the crowd.<\/p>\n

Schmitz\u2019s role boils down to analysing the weather, tyres, the track and pit stop times to prepare the best possible strategy for the weekend for Verstappen in a bid for victory.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

Red Bull principal strategist Hannah Schmitz has been delayed by the flight disruptions.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

The event also hosted Australian F1 academy drivers Aiva Anagnostiadis<\/a> and Joanne Ciconte, rally driver Molly Taylor and racing driver Jessica Hawkins.<\/p>\n

A key topic was the barriers women face in the motor sport, and the race to see the next female F1 driver.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor us it was very important to take away, first of all, any physical barriers to preventing females … because at the end of the day, the beauty of our sport is that the stopwatch is the same for everybody,\u201d Domenicali said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stopwatch doesn\u2019t lie, the stopwatch doesn\u2019t watch if you\u2019re a man or woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newey\u2019s comments came after Australian Grand Prix Corporation chair Martin Pakula conceded he was fearful some Formula 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-520232","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\/520232","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=520232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}