{"id":80371,"date":"2021-07-06T14:18:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T21:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=80371"},"modified":"2021-07-06T14:18:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T21:18:43","slug":"australian-motogp-and-formula-one-races-canceled-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/australian-motogp-and-formula-one-races-canceled-for-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian MotoGP and Formula One Races Canceled for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"F1
Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There will be no Australian MotoGP race at Phillip Island this year and no Formula One race in Melbourne. COVID-19 continues to cause changes in plans and, for the race-mad Aussies, this is tragic. For the rest of us that anticipate watching both circuits challenge riders and drivers, we\u2019ll just have to hope and wait for 2022 in order to see an Australian GP for either motorcycles or formula cars.<\/p>\n

The Phillip Island Red Bull Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix was intended to go forward on October 24th, two weeks after Thailand and a week prior to Malaysia. The FIM, IRTA and Dorna Sports, all of whom are responsible for conducting MotoGP races around the world, cited ongoing COVID-19 concerns and resulting travel complications and logistical restrictions. \u201cIt has not been possible to confirm the viability of the event at this time and it will, therefore, not feature on the 2021 calendar,\u201d the announcement confirmed.<\/p>\n

Because of this cancellation, MotoGP\u2019s Malaysian race will take place the 22-24 of October, which is the weekend following the rescheduled Grand Prix of Thailand. To make up for the missing Australian race, the FIM, IRTA and Dorna Sports have added the Grande Premio do Algarve to the 2021 calendar. MotoGP returns to Portimao from November 5-7, the week before the Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana. The decision gives Algarve a second race this season.<\/p>\n

The Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne is, customarily, the start of the Formula One season, with a delightful setting of Albert Park and the joyousness of a race season start-up. The pandemic initially forced Motorsport Australia to request a date change to November, in the hopes that international travel would be far more open than it was at the start of 2021.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that is not happening and, even though F1 were not going to allow foreign visitors to attend the race, there were hopes it could go on at the changed date. According to Motorsport Australia president Andrew Fraser, \u201cThe Australian Grand Prix Corporation has confirmed this year\u2019s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix will not take place as planned in November. Instead, the focus is now firmly on making sure the iconic event returns to Albert Park in 2022. This is obviously a disappointing development,\u201d Fraser said, \u201cbut it is a decision that is understandable, given the ongoing border restrictions that apply for overseas visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There will be no Australian MotoGP race at Phillip Island this year and no Formula One race in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":70679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,5029,22],"tags":[5614,8514,2052,3752,8515,41,1632],"class_list":["post-80371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-anne-proffit","tag-australian","tag-events","tag-formula-one","tag-moto-gp","tag-news","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Formula_One_Test_Days_2019_-_Ferrari_SF90_-_Sebastian_Vettel-min.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-kUj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80372,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80371\/revisions\/80372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}