Formula 1 says it has yet to decide on whether planned upcoming events in Bahrain and Vietnam can go ahead as scheduled, amid the current global turmoil.
The intended season-opening round in Australia was eventually cancelled on Friday after a member from McLaren tested positive for COVID-19.
China, planned for April 19, has already been postponed, but the calendar as it stands features Bahrain next weekend (March 22) and Vietnam as the next event (April 5).
It is understood that neither event is likely to happen while May’s trio of rounds in The Netherlands, Spain and Monaco are also under threat.
“Realistically, I can keep saying it’s fluid,” said Formula 1 CEO Chase Carey.
“If I use the last five days, you’ve just got to look at how things have changed over the last five days.
“Trying to predict how it’s going to look like going forward I just think is unrealistic.
“Everyone wants an answer, we’d love to have an answer, but you can’t force an answer to something that right now we don’t have any answers to.
“I think we have to continue — which is what we’re doing — reaching out to every expert we can, everybody we can, around the world.
“Clearly we’re a global sport and therefore we’re not just dealing with a single-country issue, we’re dealing with an array of complexity but I think we have to continue to deal with those as the situation evolves.
“We will in the coming days be looking at the races that are more imminent like Bahrain and Vietnam, and we will have further announcements and further decisions on how we navigate the short-term elements of our schedule.
“We know there are issues there, but our announcement today (Friday) we are focusing on the issues related to the Australian Grand Prix.”
