{"id":549725,"date":"2026-03-19T03:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T03:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/549725\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T03:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T03:38:14","slug":"f1-news-2026-adelaides-bold-pitch-to-secure-race-after-bahrain-saudi-arabia-grand-prix-cancelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/549725\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news 2026 | Adelaide’s bold pitch to secure race after Bahrain, Saudi Arabia Grand Prix cancelled"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bold pitch to get Adelaide on the calendar for the current Formula 1<\/a> season has been revealed, with South Australia’s Premier, Peter Malinauskas, making a play to replace two major races.<\/p>\n

The cancellation of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia was confirmed<\/a> by F1 organisers this week amid ongoing safety concerns due to the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The decision to abandon those races had been widely expected, but organisers waited until just under a month out from when they were scheduled to make the final call.<\/p>\n

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Alternative venues to host the cancelled races were considered by the F1, including a new race on a circuit in Europe or even back-to-back contests in Japan.<\/p>\n

But Malinauskas saw an opportunity to get South Australia back on the calendar. <\/p>\n

“I reached out to Stefano Domenicali, who is the CEO of F1,” Malinauskas told Triple M.<\/p>\n

\"Premier<\/p>\n

Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“I’ve been working on this a little bit for a while, and when the events got cancelled because of the Iran war, I was straight on the phone to them.<\/p>\n

“As soon as it became obvious that they were not going to be racing in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, I was like, ‘Hello, this is an opportunity’. So I got on the phone and asked.<\/p>\n

“I put it out to them. I said, ‘Listen, I’ve got the team, they’ve worked the numbers. We can set the track up on these timelines.'”<\/p>\n

Malinauskas was told his pitch would be taken on board when it came to making a call on if South Australia would be a suitable host venue for the cancelled races.<\/p>\n

In the end, due to logistical reasons<\/a>, F1 organisers opted against alternative venues.<\/p>\n

The FIA also confirmed that F2, F2 and the F1 Academy will also have no additional races in wake of the late cancellation of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. <\/p>\n

“You’ve got to be in it to win it,” Malinauskas said of his efforts.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t putting it out there publicly because it was an initial reach out. I rang them directly. I just happened to land at a time he was with [Eddie McGuire].”<\/p>\n

\"Ukyo<\/p>\n

Ukyo Katayama in action at the last Australian Grand Prix held in Adelaide in 1995.\u00a0LAT Images<\/p>\n

McGuire told FIVEaa that he believed Malinauska’s pitch was “genius”, as he also was speaking to Domenicali in an attempt to get a second race to take place in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“It was a near thing, (Malinauskas) did everything right,” McGuire recalled.<\/p>\n

“It’s only in the end Formula 1 said no.”<\/p>\n

The bid was always going to be a massive reach for South Australia given the heavy costs related to getting each team’s equipment around the globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To be able to move from Asia back to Australia on short notice would be a tough ask, while another obstacle was that the Adelaide circuit has not yet been approved for racing F1. <\/p>\n

South Australia has recently ramped up its events calendar, with motorsport one piece of the puzzle. Adelaide will host a MotoGP Grand Prix next year.<\/p>\n

The F1, meanwhile, will travel to Japan for the third race of the season on March 29. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bold pitch to get Adelaide on the calendar for the current Formula 1 season has been revealed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-549725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549725","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=549725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}