(Motorsport-Total.com) – The possible start of the 2020 Formula 1 season with a double race in Spielberg on July 5th and 12th is taking shape. After Red Bull Motorsport consultant Helmut Marko, an official political representative has now committed to the idea for the first time. And at the Red Bull Ring, tests of the staff for an infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus have already started.
© LAT
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400 boxes of SARS-CoV-2 tests were carried out in the boxes in Spielberg zoom
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As the ‘Kleine Zeitung’ reports, around 400 employees from the race track, the safety relay, the surrounding Mateschitz hotel and catering businesses (summarized under the umbrella of the Spielberg project) and the local tourism association were tested for the corona virus by taking blood. Now the blood samples are evaluated in the laboratory.
The Spielberg project does not officially comment on this process. Viewed from the outside, however, these can only be preparatory measures for the (currently theoretical) case that the decision-makers can manage to hold the Austrian Grand Prix, possibly even with two races.
The decision-makers, on the one hand, are Red Bull as the organizer (Marko has already commented positively on the idea and is campaigning for it) and Formula 1. Both would naturally welcome the event to be held. And on the other hand, politics: the Styrian state government in Graz and the Austrian federal government in Vienna.
At least from Graz there are signals for the first time that the Red Bull initiative is fundamentally supported: “Of course I would appreciate it if Formula 1 will be held at the Red Bull Ring in Styria again this year. Even in times of the current corona crisis, we may don’t lose confidence “, Governor Hermann Schützenhöfer (ÖVP) is quoted by the ‘APA’.
From a political perspective, a Grand Prix has two sides. First: Even if the public is closed (Marko speaks of a pure TV event), around 1,500 people are required to hold the Grand Prix including the framework race. If only one of them were infected with the corona virus, this would be difficult to convey to the public.
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Secondly, if a small country like Austria with an Austrian flagship company like Red Bull, thanks to its professional organization, manages to safely host a global event like Formula 1 before everyone else, it would be a project that also involves the politics of Chancellor Sebastian In short (ÖVP) can profile internationally.
Detached from all health policy issues, a season start in Spielberg would be a unique opportunity for the tourist region. The pictures of the first major international sporting event worldwide would go around the world. The privilege of holding the first Formula 1 race is usually reserved for the Australian metropolis of Melbourne in normal times.
Schützenhöfer therefore says: “We are infinitely grateful to Dietrich Mateschitz for his huge commitment to his home in Styria. Accordingly, it would be nice if we could at least send an exciting Grand Prix and the beautiful pictures of the Mur Valley out into the world via TV.”
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