{"id":4158,"date":"2010-04-04T13:17:56","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T17:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=4158"},"modified":"2010-04-04T13:17:56","modified_gmt":"2010-04-04T17:17:56","slug":"australian-gp-chief-says-5pm-race-not-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/australian-gp-chief-says-5pm-race-not-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian GP chief says 5pm race ‘not dangerous’"},"content":{"rendered":"
Australian grand prix organiser Ron Walker has slammed reports that drivers successfully pushed for an earlier start-time for next year’s Melbourne race.<\/span><\/h5>\n

<\/p>\n

In the wake of the 5pm race a week ago, with the ‘twilight’ concept providing a better live TV slot for F1’s bulk European audience, some drivers repeated their criticisms that the race ended in dangerously low light.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Michael Schumacher – backed by some of his on-track rivals – revealed that the FIA did lighting tests at Albert Park that should now lead to an earlier race in 2011.<\/p>\n

But in response, Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Walker said on Sunday that the whinging F1 drivers are “prima donnas”.<\/p>\n

“It (the 5pm start) is clearly not dangerous,” he told the Herald Sun newspaper.<\/p>\n

“You can’t please these drivers, they are a bunch of lazy people who won’t do anything to help the sport, except for two or three.<\/p>\n

“A lot of drivers are prima donnas.\u00a0 They are never happy,” added Walker.<\/p>\n

Australia’s motor racing sanctioning body CAMS insists that the official debrief of the 2010 GP has not yet taken place.<\/p>\n

And Walker said he is anticipating the FIA’s apparent lighting test findings, because he thinks 5pm is a good start time.<\/p>\n

The saga comes at a bad time for the Melbourne event, because the rival New South Wales government is pushing to snatch the Australian GP and host it under floodlights in Sydney.<\/p>\n

The Victorian government, on the other hand, has ruled out lighting the Albert Park track, despite strong pressure from F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF|GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian grand prix organiser Ron Walker has slammed reports that drivers successfully pushed for an earlier start-time for next year’s Melbourne race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5339,805,59,5262,5300,5261,5340,1160],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4159,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions\/4159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}