The Australian Grand Prix was officially confirmed as the first of twenty-two races of the 2020 Formula One World Championship at an FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris in December 2019. The race was due to take place at the sixteen-turn, Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria on 15 March 2020.
Entrants
Ten teams each with two drivers entered the race. Scuderia AlphaTauri were due to make their debut as a constructor having previously competed under the name Scuderia Toro Rosso. Esteban Ocon was due to return to the championship, replacing Nico Hülkenberg at Renault. Nicholas Latifi was scheduled to make his competitive debut with Williams, taking the seat previously filled by Robert Kubica. However, these events were all postponed by the cancellation of the race. Mission Winnow, the title sponsor of Ferrari, was banned from the race as it did not comply with local laws governing tobacco sponsorship.
The weeks before the Grand Prix saw several major sporting events either cancelled or postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared a pandemic by World Health Organisation three days before the race. Motorsport events affected included the Chinese Grand Prix, the World Endurance Championship, the MotoGP World Championship, the World Touring Car Cup, the Formula E championship, the World Rally Championship, the Japanese Super Formula championship, and the IndyCar Series. The VictorianDepartment of Health announced that the Australian Grand Prix would go ahead as planned, but Ferrari and AlphaTauri expressed concern as both teams were based in Italy, which had suffered one of the worst outbreaks of the virus outside China. As the Australian government did not initially implement a travel ban for Italy the way it had for China, Iran and South Korea, Ferrari and AlphaTauri were concerned over the ability of their staff to leave the quarantine zone established in northern Italy. Ross Brawn, the managing director of the sport, announced that Grands Prix would not go ahead if a team were blocked from entering a host nation, but added that a race could take place if a team voluntarily chose not to enter a host nation. Organisers of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was scheduled to take place one week after the Australian race, announced that spectators would not be permitted to attend the event. Organisers of the Australian Grand Prix opted against similar measures, instead moving to minimise contact between spectators and competitors. The rule was also applied to competitors in support categories, including the Supercars Championship, S5000 Championship and the TCR Asia-Pacific Cup, which was to be held as a non-championship round of the TCR Australia Series. Five crew members, four from Haas and one from McLaren, were entered into quarantine upon arriving in Melbourne when they displayed flu-like symptoms. All five of them were tested for COVID-19 and the results came out negative for the Haas members but positive for the McLaren member. McLaren made the announcement on Thursday evening to withdraw from the race. A photographer later entered isolation as well. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews was criticised for allowing the Grand Prix to go ahead, but responded by saying that cancelling the race would be a disproportionate reaction to the advice the state government had been given. Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Räikkönen were also critical of the decision to hold the race, citing the National Basketball Association's decision to indefinitely suspend its 2019–20 season. Daniel Andrews announced that spectators would be banned from attending if the Grand Prix were to go ahead, before the race was cancelled on the Friday morning a few hours before the Formula One cars were due to commence their first practice section. It subsequently emerged that only three teams—Red Bull Racing, its sister team Scuderia AlphaTauri and Racing Point—were willing to compete if the race went ahead. After the cancellation, a further fourteen team members from McLaren were put into quarantine. All support category events were also cancelled. These had conducted practice and qualifying sessions on the Thursday, along with a singular race for the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia series. A two-seater Minardi also performed some demonstration runs early on the Friday morning.
Attempt to reschedule
Shortly after the cancellation, organisers announced that they planned to reschedule the race for later in the year. Several more Grands Prix were cancelled or postponed and the start of the championship delayed until July. A new calendar with eight races was eventually published, but the Australian Grand Prix was not included; however, Liberty Media announced that they intended to hold as many as fifteen races. In June 2020, federal tourism ministerSimon Birmingham announced that the Australian government expected that the country's borders would be closed to international travel until 2021.
