McLaren team boss, Martin Whitmarsh, has offered a helping hand to any team personnel stuck in Shanghai by offering them a flight home as well as covering the cost.
Although the plane is privately owned and therefore isn’t subject to the whims of the airlines, they are still required by law to have the same clearance from UK air traffic control when landing in UK airspace.
Whitmarsh, however, has suggested that as long as they get their own people back, they will offer out the remaining seats as the F1 world moves into a “we’re all in this together” phase.
“We took the flyer and said that if it is half empty then we will bear the premium, so as long as we have got our team on it then we are happy for it to be full. I think some teams were hesitating this morning but they are now jumping on board pretty quick,” he explained.
The problem now appears to be getting the freight back to the UK for any upgrades that teams have in the pipeline for the race at the Circuit de Catalunya in three weeks.
Each team has tons of freight stuck in Shanghai and if the air-downtime continues for more than a week, teams may be forced to fly this directly to Barcelona and postpone upgrades until Monaco.
