Formula E’s London venue to become hospital
The London ExCel centre that is set to host the season finale of the 2019/2020 Formula E Championship is being currenly turned into a makeshift hospital to help the United Kingdom in its fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
At present, the London Excel Centre is scheduled to stage the season-ending double header of this year’s FE championship. However, the rapidly spreading COVID-19 coronavirus has led to a quickly changing situation in motorsport, forcing the series to postpone and cancel races.
The facility is being repurposed to establish a temporary hospital amid the novel coronavirus spread. The construction began on Wednesday on the 100,000 sq metre Docklands site. The venue will open next week and can accommodate 4,000 beds.
In an everyday federal government interview, wellness assistant Matt Hancock claimed: “We will, next week, open a new hospital, a temporary hospital, the NHS Nightingale Hospital at the Excel centre in London.”
“With the aid of the army and also with NHS medical professionals, we will certainly ensure that we have the capability that we require to make sure that every person can obtain the assistance that they require.”
Formula E became the first championship to make changes to its calendar as a result of the coronavirus outbreak when it cancelled the Sanya E-Prix. The series then implemented further tweaks to its calendar with the postponement of the Rome E-Prix. It is unsure whether the Rome round can make a comeback later in the year after Italy has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic since.
The next move was the postponement of the inaugural Jakarta E-Prix followed by the decision to suspend the season for a two-month period.
The championship introduced a flag system with the motorsport’s traditional yellow, red and green colours to indicate the viability of races in the coming time period. Months marked as red flags are March and April, with May currently categorised as a yellow flag and both June and July given the green flag, should the situation improve and stabilise.
