Where next for F1? Australia race canceled, Bahrain in doubt

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The curtain-raiser has been canceled. The second and third events are in doubt and the fourth has already been postponed.

The Formula One series — the ”big circus" as six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton calls it — doesn't really have a starting line after the season-opening Australian Grand Prix was canceled Friday because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Where next? Some have suggested the season won't get underway until June, at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

There's five GPs on the calendar between now and then, including Spain and Monaco.

The government has already banned fans from attending next week's Bahrain Grand Prix. If it goes ahead, the will be at an empty circuit. Vietnam was due to host its debut F1 Grand Prix on a street circuit in Hanoi on April 5. The Chinese GP, initially scheduled for April, was last month postponed indefinitely.

Travel bans or restrictions amid the growing toll from the COVID-19 illness are making predictions difficult.

“Everybody wants an answer — you can’t force an answer to something we don’t have an answer to," Formula One chairman Chase Carey said Friday. “We’re reaching out to every expert we can around the world — we’re a global sport. We’re not dealing with one country .... we’re dealing with an array of complexity.

“I don’t think at this point it’s productive to get into hypotheticals."

Carey was in Vietnam earlier this week, and the outcome of negotiations with local officials are unclear. Carey arrived in Australia just in time for crisis meetings involving Australian organizers, the international governing body for motor sports and the principals of the nine F1 teams.

The other team, McLaren, had already withdrawn because a team member tested positive for...