22/04/2020
NEWS STORY
F1's two new additions to the calendar, the Vietnamese and Dutch Grands Prix, both look set to be victims of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While both are currently postponed, the announcement by the Netherlands Prime Minister, Mark Rutte that he is extending the current ban on public events until September appears to rule out any hope of the Dutch event taking place this year.
The move is in reaction to the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), which stated that "allowing events to take place poses a real risk of the virus spreading too quickly and too widely".
Fearing that there is unlikely to be any change in the near future, the OMT advised extending the current ban.
"Events will not take place until September 1," said Rutte. "We are therefore extending that decision by three months, from June 1 to September 1.
"We are doing this because we can't take the risks for the next three months and because we want to do justice to the need for clarity on the part of the organisers," he added.
"That also means definitely no professional football until 1 September. With all the consequences this crisis has for the health of people, for companies and for society as a whole, we cannot escape making this sacrifice. I hope and expect that people will understand that."
The move also rules out any hope of the MotoGP round, due to take place at Assen on 28 June, taking place.
Reacting to the news, Jan Lammers, the driving force behind F1's return to Holland, told Motorsport.com: "We have already gone through so many scenarios. It's all wasted energy. It only leads to more questions and confusion.
"As much as we'd like to say something, we can't say anything until it's concrete. We'll just wait and see how everything actually stands. Then we don't have to come up with vague answers, but we can just be clear and concrete to the people."
The former F1 driver also admitted that rescheduling the event for August was never liekly.
"By now it has become clear that August was never an option," he said. "That underlines once again how pointless it is to talk about different scenarios. You shouldn't shout things for the sake of it. That's like a false start: if you leave too early, you'll be punished for that later."