Formula One news
Australian Grand Prix offers to start race at 5.00pm
10 March 2008The organizers of the Australian Grand Prix issued a statement on Monday where it says it is willing to compromise with Bernie Ecclestone's wishes to organise the race at night. The organizers of the Australian Grand Prix wish to start the Australian Grand Prix in 2009 at 05.00pm, which is 06.00am GMT.
The start time for the Australian Grand Prix this Sunday has been moved from 2:00pm to 3:30pm (Melbourne time) which will allow most Europeans to watch live coverage starting from 5:30am (GMT +1) and finishing about 7:10am and people in Asian cities such as Singapore and Shanghai to watch from 12:30pm until 2:10pm. This should add millions of viewers to the total around the world.
Australian Grand Prix Corporation Chairman Ron Walker said today that if international television audience figures showed that the change was successful in attracting more viewers, the race start time would be moved even later for 2009. "If starting the race later this year increases the television audience around the world, as we believe it will, we'll seek a 5:00pm start for the 2009 race," Mr Walker said.
"That will mean a 7:00am start time for the television coverage in Europe, finishing at about 8.40am; a 6:00am start time in the UK, finishing at about 7.40am; and an afternoon start and finish across the Asian continent where there are potentially hundreds of millions of extra viewers. All this can be achieved without any additional infrastructure costs."
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