Formula One and its governing body, FIA, said the Grands Prix races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will not happen in April due to safety concerns related to the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Both countries have been hit during Iran\u2019s retaliatory attacks after the United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n
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The announcement was made early on Sunday morning in Shanghai ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to the ongoing situation in the Middle East region, the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix will not take place in April,\u201d F1 said. \u201cWhile several alternatives were considered, it was ultimately decided that no substitutions will be made in April.\u201d<\/p>\n
F1 was due to race in Bahrain on April 12 and in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah on April 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this was a difficult decision to take, it is unfortunately the right one at this stage considering the current situation in the Middle East,\u201d said Stefano Domenicali, president and CEO of F1.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe FIA will always place the safety and well being of our community and colleagues first. After careful consideration, we have taken this decision with that responsibility firmly in mind,\u201d FIA\u2019s president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, said.<\/p>\n
The FIA did not explicitly rule out rescheduling the races and, along with F1, did not use the words \u201ccancel\u201d or \u201cpostpone\u201d in announcing that the series would not be in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cBahrain and Saudi Arabia are incredibly important to the ecosystem of our racing season, and I look forward to returning to both as soon as circumstances allow,\u201d Ben Sulayem said.<\/p>\n
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The promoters of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia said they supported the decision.<\/p>\n
F1\u2019s packed schedule does not have any obvious open dates for rescheduled races this year.<\/p>\n
Calling off the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races means there will be a five-week gap from the Japanese Grand Prix on March 29 and the next race, the Miami Grand Prix, on May 3. Without any rescheduling, the 22-race schedule would be the shortest since 2023.<\/p>\n
The two Middle East races were not to happen until next month, but F1 faced making a decision earlier because it typically flies in the first staff and cargo to tracks weeks in advance. F1 was also faced with the difficulty of selling tickets at short notice, which makes it almost impossible to set up a replacement race in other countries.<\/p>\n
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Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver who qualified on pole position for Sunday\u2019s race in Shanghai, said his thoughts were \u201cwith the ones that are suffering from this situation\u201d and that safety needed to be the priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure they will do the right thing,\u201d he said of FIA and F1.<\/p>\n
The schedule is a joint matter for FIA and for F1\u2019s commercial rights holder, and teams had signalled a willingness to follow their lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we follow the guidance of the FIA and Formula 1, as we always do. They\u2019ve always led us in the right direction,\u201d Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley said on Friday. \u201cNobody\u2019s going to compromise on anything that would put teams into an uncomfortable situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bahrain had already hosted two preseason F1 tests this season, before Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran. A smaller-scale test of wet-weather tyres was called off in the immediate aftermath of the strikes.<\/p>\n
A travel shutdown affecting major airports in the Middle East also caused disruption for Europe-based F1 and team staff heading to Melbourne for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The last time a scheduled F1 race was cancelled was in 2023, when the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in northern Italy was called off at short notice due to deadly floods in the area.<\/p>\n
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In 2022, F1 continued with its race weekend in Saudi Arabia, even after Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels attacked an oil depot during a practice session, with black smoke visible from the Jeddah circuit.<\/p>\n
The same year, F1 cancelled the Russian Grand Prix\u2019s contract after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula One and its governing body, FIA, said the Grands Prix races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3846,49,48,116179,578,56326,3754,576,580,577,5897,14847,91538,209997,10948,13341,82],"class_list":["post-536840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-bahrain","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chinese-grand-prix","tag-f1","tag-f1-race","tag-fia","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-one","tag-formula1","tag-iran","tag-japanese-grand-prix","tag-miami-grand-prix","tag-middle-east-region","tag-mohammed-ben-sulayem","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}