MELBOURNE : Australian Grand Prix chief executive Travis Auld expects no disruption to this weekend’s Formula One season-opener at Melbourne’s Albert Park despite travel chaos triggered by conflict in the Middle East.
U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran at the weekend was followed by retaliatory strikes on Gulf states, halting activity in one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs.
Several teams had been due to transit through Qatar or the United Arab Emirates after completing pre-season testing in Bahrain, raising concerns over possible delays ahead of Sunday’s race.
“No doubts the events of the weekend have thrown out the travel plans for the teams and F1 themselves,” Auld told Fox Sports on Monday.
“F1 are experts at moving people around the world and so they’ve quickly rescheduled flights. I’m told everyone’s now locked in and arriving within the required timeframes, and so there’ll be no impact on our race.
“But it’s certainly been a busy 48 hours, particularly for F1.”
The Melbourne race opens the 2026 campaign and will be followed by rounds in China and Japan before the championship heads to the Gulf for races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April.
Auld said Formula One would be considering contingency plans should the conflict affect upcoming events.
“As it stands at the moment, there are no issues for us, but I’d imagine beyond us, they’ll be thinking about what they might do to their calendar if they need to,” he added.
He noted that the temporary nature of the Albert Park circuit would make it difficult for Melbourne to host a replacement race at short notice if either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia were unable to stage their events.
“Obviously we spend a lot of time constructing this circuit, and straight after the race we pull it all back down again so the community can use it,” he said.
“They’ll have other plans in place, as you would imagine, for a whole series of reasons.”
