Formula 1 motorsport director Ross Brawn has declared any race where teams have been denied entry would not count towards this year's world championship.
His statement comes as uncertainty continues over the first three races of the 2020 season due to the ongoing Coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak and the prospect of travel restricting impacting particularly Italian-linked teams like Ferrari, AlphaTauri and even tyre supplier Pirelli.
Previously, Franz Tost, team boss at AlphaTauri, has claimed it would be unfair for a race to go ahead if some teams had been denied entry to the country but Brawn appears to have suggested a good compromise.
“If a team is prevented from entering a country, we can’t have a race,” he told Reuters. “Not a Formula 1 World Championship race, anyway, because that would be unfair.
“Obviously if a team makes its own choice not to go to a race, that’s their decision.
“But where a team is prevented from going to a race because of a decision of the country then it’s difficult to have a fair competition.”
Though organisers for the Australian and Bahrain GP's stated their events will take place as planned, local officials are still being a little more cautious.
“All of the indications from Formula One Management are that they are planning for the Grand Prix to go ahead,” Martin Pakula, minister for tourism, sport and major events in the Victoria state government, told reporters on Wednesday.
“The set-up is already occurring, we would be expecting machinery and teams to be arriving from today through to the end of the weekend. So we are almost at the point where everybody is going to be here within the next few days.
“But having said that, I recognise the situation is extremely dynamic and to some extent, there are matters that are out of control. There are decisions made by the (government) or might be made overseas.
“I’m very hopeful and confident but I can’t say anything about it with absolute certainty.”
Meanwhile in Bahrain, "specific measures" are being made to accommodate F1 personnel with flight details of all those associated with the race being submitted to authorities and screenings are set to be done upon arrival in the country to determine if they are granted entry.
"It's an incredibly serious situation," Claire Williams, deputy team boss at Williams, said via ESPN.
"Being a global sport travelling around the world with thousands and thousands of people - and that doesn't take into account the number of fans travelling as well - there's so much movement that we've got to be incredibly responsible and enormously responsive as well.
"But at the moment it is a moving target. We're clearly keeping in touch with the relevant authorities, with F1 as well, and taking the guidance as it's coming. It is changing literally by the hour at the moment.
"It's quite a difficult management piece when you're thinking about F1 and the number of personnel that you're taking to a race," she added.
"Plus the amount of kit that you're putting on air freight and sea freight, and the cost involved in all of that.
"We want to go racing at the end of the day, but we've got to make sure that we keep our people safe in doing that. We will just continue to take the guidance as and when it comes through."
