Chase Carey, Ross Brawn and Andrew Westcott faced the press along with Paul Little after the F1 Australian GP was cancelled as they answer wide range of topics including the 2020 calendar and comments made by Lewis Hamilton.
Amid the chaos of the last-minute Australian GP cancellation, representatives from the FIA, F1, and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation got together to discuss the situation, and answer questions presented to them by host of media present.
A wide range of topics was discussed, from the financial impact of the Grand Prix cancellation to the upcoming races (or lack thereof). However, here are the key things that were said throughout the conference involving Carey, Westcott, Little and Michael Masi.
– Westcott on decision to cancel F1 Australian GP:
“The science behind the epidemiology of this virus is being monitored very, very closely by the Chief Health Officer, the Department of Health and Human Services in the Victorian government, and the national network of chief health officer’s, they’re looking at what’s happening in Australia, they’re looking at what’s happening globally, they’re looking at the spread of this from a pandemic point of view, and they’ve taken all these inputs.
“Clearly they act on the information they have – I have no doubt that the inputs of what was happening at the circuit is one of many, many inputs along with the inputs and considerations of what’s happening with the virus in Melbourne, Australia, and globally. I’m sure they took it [the positive case in the paddock] into account, but they had a broader set of considerations as well, and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation took advice from the Chief Health Officer this morning, pretty much at the same time as we were finalizing matters with F1 and the FIA.”
Whether if anyone was at risk to be here already:
“There’s no suggestion that [anybody here was already at risk and exposed] whatsoever. The Chief Health Officer of the Victorian government takes into account not only the test results of the eight teams that were submitted and the one positive, but it also takes into account what’s happening in the localized society, in the environments of Melbourne.
“It takes input from his colleagues inter-state, they are networked from an overseas perspective, and they feed up to a national committee, so the broad base set of inputs. And, when they made the decision they did, it was because of the medical evidence that they have, and that we’ve taken all along, and at this point in time it was clearly the right decision to make, and we are where we are.”
Whether cancelled or there is scope for return later:
“It’s important to say that we used the word ‘cancellation’ because of the immanency of the timing of it. It was important that fans at the gate knew that it wasn’t a postponement, or get the impression that it was for some period of hours or days. The word ‘cancellation’ was used deliberately here. I’ve learned in the world of F1 that you never say never.
“We clearly have been working on the here and now with Chase Carey and the FIA, and F1. We’ll work through matters, but we haven’t started to think about future staging or anything like that. But it’s clearly a normal topic of discussion that will happen in the fullness of time. We can’t leave it here for months. One of the things we respect here is there are sporting activities here.
“We recognise that one of the privileges we have is to occupy a beautiful park in the CBD of Melbourne, so we want to minimise the impact of the build and the dismantle. Clearly this changes the way we dismantle the circuit and return it back, but we can’t be leaving it here for days and weeks. We would expect to be dismantling and removing the infrastructure and returning it back to the sporting clubs of Albert Park and Melbourne.”
– Carey on decision, pre-post situation:
“I think there was an accumulation of facts that led to the decision. Certainly, the infection of the McLaren individual was one, but really the situation has continued to change rapidly. As I said before, if you go back and look four days ago, and you had very different situations around the world. For Europe, for the US, and for various events. It is an evolving situation, [and] all those facts are part of what we deal with.
“There obviously were other individuals being tested here, so clearly the situation is very different here to what it was on Sunday. As Andrew said, when you have an event with nearly 100,000 people here on the ground, you do have to realize, we’re a sport travelling around the world that really started to move everything here last weekend.
“In hindsight, it obviously looks very different but when things were changing as rapidly as they were, I think we were dealing with it in real-time. In terms of the decision, we’ve spent the last evening getting input from everybody. It was a joint decision, with the FIA, our Australian partners, ourselves, certainly input from the teams.
“As was expected, there were a range of views in a very difficult, challenging situation, so I think were there differing views and differing opinions? Yes, and I think that’s what everyone tried to wrestle through but I think we got through to the right place. And I think we all agree, we made the right decision.
“Obviously we don’t control how various events evolve, specifically some of the infections and some of the illnesses. We felt we made the right decision when we moved here. Again, in hindsight you’re always going to look at things differently. So it’s difficult to go back and look at it moving forward. In many places around the world clearly the situation in just 24 or 48 hours is very different than it was not that long ago.
“People were traveling through Europe and the United States, 24 hours [later] they are no longer traveling between those countries. So I think these are issues that you have to deal with in real time, make efficient, effective decisions and try and make sure you’re getting all the input and expertise you can to do the right thing. I think we got to the right place.
“We have been certainly discussing this issue for last few weeks, it is not that something which came out of the blue. I think we made the decision to come here based on the situation here last week, the degree and number of infections here. The situation in Europe is different today than last week, but certainly we were aware and that was something we had to evaluate. When teams start traveling here, we felt it was the right decision but certainly the situation changed in many ways but we were always aware and if something happens. We had many contingencies in what we were dealing with.”
Bounded by contract situation for decision to be delayed:
“I don’t think the contract does anything. We try and take everything into account, situation in Australia is very different than situation in United States or Europe, so there are differences but it is important to take everything, digest everything you can, evaluate everything you can to see what is happening. In many ways, this is an unprecedented situation, certainly for me.
“I have never lived through like this, the magnitude, the unpredictability of it and the fluidity, so in that situation, it is important to get as much input, get expert views and make sure you are communicating with everybody involved to try and talk to others and see how they are dealing with their issues. At the end of the day, everybody has to come to the same place and make the right decision for our sport but yes we have to be aware of all the other things around us too.
Responding to comments made by Hamilton:
“I guess if cash was king we wouldn’t have made the decision we did today. Again, I keep saying the same thing. In hindsight obviously things look different. There were events that evolved, situations that changed. We made a decision which given the lead time to come here, hold the event, at a point in time where major events were being held here, it was a different situation in the world, traveled, came, as the situation changed day-to-day and in some ways hour-to-hour obviously we continued to evaluate that and make the appropriate decisions going forward. I do think we were trying to digest a lot of different information to make the right decision at the right time and I think we did that.”
– Brawn on to race in Australia in first place and then cancel:
“When the freight left Europe why was the decision taken then to race in Australia. We have to go back forward even further. Sea freight is leaving to Australia six weeks before
a race. We are very keen to have the race here with wonderful weekend and huge
enthusiasm here. The Australian week end has a great impact on the economy here.
“The Grand Prix has also an impact on our economy. We have to make it work. At the time we looked at the whole situation and when we decided to go ahead, it looked different to what it looks now when we decided to go ahead. The escalation of cases in Italy for
instance. It went practically vertical. I spoke to Mattia Binotto at Ferrari several times and his mood changed many times in the past seven days.
“We were on the ship that sailed. We were optimistic. We were hoping that the race would be could get through it and we were optimistic that we could get through it and have a great race and bring a bit of relief at difficult times. Then when a team explained that they had a positive case here or several cases and then once one team could not race here. Then clearly there was a problem.”
Late decision, how it all happened:
“It started last night. I was in a restaurant when I got the call. I have not slept all night. But with so many stake holders involved we did a pretty good job. Chase Carey was in the air. We had to get hold of Jean Todt in Europe. It was a good team work. We had so many issues to get all the teams together. This is not an autocracy and we did a pretty good job with as many partners. We sat with the authorities.
“You never know once you have one case with 14 people having to go into isolation. You don’t know. You never know what the association is for each case. We don’t know if with a different profile or different responsibility, if that one case would have impacted the team differently. The procedure worked very well and we found the person positive in the paddock. We had to make a decision. In reality we found the case and that is to credit to the authorities. And then we had to make a decision.”
Dealt with something like this before and future:
“No. I dont think that anyone has experienced anything like this. The have been through different crisis, dramas or else. The scale of this is massive. We have to learn from this weekend. We want to try to build the F1 season back up. But we have to be realistic about it. The economics from the teams. The teams survive on the funding at the races. Each race you loose has an impact. There is a strong resilience in F1. I think we have got plans to accommodate and the teams realise it is necessary.”
Here’s Ferrari halting work at their base
Here’s what F1 teams/drivers said about the recent developments
Here’s F1 calling off the South Africa Fan Festival
Here’s latest on Dutch and Spanish F1 races
Here’s news on F1 postponing Baharain, Vietnam
Here’s news on how F1 Aus GP was cancelled
Here’s news from McLaren pulling out
The story was co-written by Darshan Chokhani