Carey: No race cancellation if COVID slips into the F1 paddock!

Formula 1 boss Chase Carey says a positive case of the coronavirus within the F1 paddock – even one hitting a driver – will not jeopardise the entire race weekend.

F1 published its official schedule for the summer, an agenda that will include eight races form early July to September, with two venues – the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone – hosting a pair of races one week apart.

The sport will operate behind closed gates at each event and within an extremely regulated environment that will include testing, team staff limited to 80 members and physical distancing between groups according to “a rigorous set of guidelines” put together by F1.

“An individual having been found with a positive infection will not lead to a cancellation of a race,” ensured Carey, speaking in a video interview on the official Formula 1 website.

“We encourage teams to have procedures in place so if an individual has to be put in quarantine, we have the ability to quarantine them at a hotel and to replace that individual.

“Some things we’d have to talk through and work through. The array of ‘what ifs’ are too wide to play out every one of them, but a team not being able to race wouldn’t cancel the race.

“I don’t think I could sit here and lay out the consequences. But we will have a procedure in place that finding infection will not lead to a cancellation. If a driver has an infection, [teams have] reserve drivers available.

Carey extended credit to the FIA, the sport’s governing body, for its efforts in helping F1 get itself in gear.

“Certainly, the FIA deserves an enormous amount of credit in this process,” he said.

“In many ways they’ve led in this process in terms of health and safety issues. We have engaged with a range of outside experts.

“There is a rigorous set of guidelines, probably at this point it’s 80-90 pages, which will include everything from how do you travel there, what are the processes for being in hotels there to what are the processes that exist at the track, for meals, going to the restroom, downtime between tracks and testing processes.

“We will test before you go there, then there will be testing every two days. There are processes if we find an infection.

“We recognize there is the possibility so we’re prepared to appropriately deal with it, if we find a positive infection. We’re working on putting in place tracking capabilities, we have two different tracking options.”

While the risk of contagion or a propagation of the coronavirus in the paddock cannot be entirely eliminated, Carey is confident that the implementation of the stringent measures and procedures will minimize the hazard.

“Clearly, we recognise our sport is one which at times, we can’t have two metres between every individual on a team,” said the American.

“When a car pulls into a pit and has to change four tyres, there won’t be two metres between every individual. We need to make sure we have procedures to manage all those risks as soon as possible.”