Coronavirus: Chinese Grand Prix set to be postponed due to spreading virus

On Wednesday morning, most of the UK media are reporting that the Chinese Grand Prix will be cancelled or postponed with the suggestion that Formula 1 bosses will confirm the news within the next 48 hours. The race is currently scheduled to take place on April 19 in Shanghai. 

According to the reports in the Daily Mail and the BBC, there is no answer as to whether Formula 1 will reschedule or cancel the event in its entirety. Moving the race to a later date will be trouble due to the heavily congested schedule. A movement will likely result in at least a triple-header, potentially a quadruple-header. Getting teams to agree to that will be near impossible. 

There have now been over 40,000 confirmed cases of the virus, with over 1,000 deaths. That's more than the SARS outbreak at the start of the century. The World Health Organisation has declared a global health emergency. 

Events in Formula E, golf, snooker, Olympic qualifiers and the World Athletics Indoor Championships have all been cancelled. Those are due to take place in the next couple of months. 

What do the teams say?

On Monday, Toto Wolff was still expecting the race to continue as he was heading to the Chinese Embassy for his biometric scan following the Mercedes livery launch. Meanwhile, Mattia Binotto said it would be bad to lose the race.

"From a sporting point of view, it would be bad to lose a Grand Prix. It's always nice to go to China. Moreover, a month without races is bad for Formula 1," he said to Sky Italia. 

The last time Formula 1 had a postponed race was the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix due to the Arab Spring uprisings.