Grand Prix Baku promotor wants to prevent "absolute disaster" like Australia

Yesterday it was announced that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been postponed and therefore the Formula 1 season of 2020 will start later than ever before. After all, the next race will be Canada, but with the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, it is now difficult to say when the season will actually start. The fact that the Azerbaijani Grand Prix has been postponed has to do with COVID-19, but there is another reason.

Last minute cancellation

In Australia everything was ready to start, but at the last minute the race was cancelled. That was obviously the best choice for public health, significantly less for the financial aspect of the whole thing. As it takes quite a bit to set up a race, no promoter wants it to have been for nothing. A situation that has now arisen in Australia due to the last minute cancellation.

The promoter of the Azerbaijani Grand Prix wants to avoid that situation and that is why they have postponed the race. To Racer, Arif Rahimov, the CEO of the race organization in Azerbaijan, says: "If you have a precedent, it is easier to work with everyone because everyone understands the pain you are going through.

"I really want to say that I don't think any promoter should be in a situation where the Australian promoters are in. I really feel sorry for Andy Westacott (Australian Grand Prix CEO) and his team", who has now done a lot of work for nothing and it remains to be seen whether the Australian Grand Prix will return to the 2020 calendar.

Terrible

"It's absolutely terrible what he's been through and cancelling the event at the very last minute is a disaster for the promoter. There is so much trouble in a race like this. Australia is also a temporary circuit, so I think they spend a lot of time, money and energy building the track".

"If at the last minute the decision is made to cancel the race, it's an absolute disaster. I think that's something that every promoter really wants to avoid." This also forms the basis for the postponement of the Grand Prix in Baku, given that the circuit is also temporary in nature. After all, it runs right through the city.

At the moment the city isn't building it yet, they wanted to be ahead of it. "We have made the decision before we have built anything of the circuit. It was one of the primary points in our internal deadline that we set. We really want to make sure that we don't run into unnecessary expenses."

"It would be a complete disaster if we spent all the money on building a circuit and then didn't race on it," said Rahimov, indicating that they normally start building in mid-March. They postponed this for a week to make the decision and at the last minute they made the decision.