Coronavirus: Bahrain Grand Prix 2020 to be a participants-only event

Manama - The Bahrain GP is scheduled for Sunday, March 22.

This year's Bahrain Grand Prix, scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 22, will be a participants-only event, the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) said.

The decision was taken in consultation with international partners and the Kingdom's national health taskforce.

"As an F1 host nation, balancing the welfare of supporters and race-goers is a tremendous responsibility. Given the continued spread of Covid-19 globally, convening a major sporting event, which is open to the public and allows thousands of international travellers and local fans to interact in close proximity, would not be the right thing to do at the present time. But to ensure that neither the sport, nor its global supporter base, is unduly impacted, the race weekend itself will still go ahead as a televised event," the BIC said in a statement.

Bahrain's own early actions to prevent, identify and isolate cases of individuals with the Covid-19 coronavirus have been extremely successful to date, it added.

"The approach has involved rapid, proactive measures, identifying those affected by the virus, of which the overwhelming majority of cases relate to those travelling into the country by air. Aggressive social distancing measures have further increased the effectiveness of preventing the virus' spread, something that would clearly be near impossible to maintain were the race to have proceeded as originally planned," BIC said.

"We know how disappointed many will be by this news, especially for those planning to travel to the event, which has become a cornerstone event of the international F1 calendar, but safety has to remain our utmost priority."