The Brazilian and United Stated Grand Prix under threat

Although the United Stated and the Brazilian Grands Prix are scheduled to take place on October 25 and November 15 respectively, the coronavirus crisis casts doubts over both events.

While Europe is slowly showing signs of emerging from the coronavirus pandemic, the American continent seems to become the new epicentre of the COVID-19 crisis. In the U.S., the total number of registered coronavirus infections has been increased to 1,650,677 by Sunday, making the country the one with the highest number of cases.

Last Friday, Brazil recorded 20,803 new cases, taking its overall total to 330,890. Another 1,001 death were registered in the past 24 hours, taking the death count up to 21,048.

The United States Grand Prix is set to be staged at Austin on the 25th of October. Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, all events have been called off on the circuit and it does not seem that this will change soon.

According to Austin's medical expert, Dr. Mark Escott major events are the last priority amid the current coronavirus crisis.

"Big events are the first things we've cancelled and will be the last things we're going to give the green light again, because of the risk of exposing large groups of people to each other,” says Escott to the Austin Statesman.

„We're working on a plan to predict what we think is reasonable, but until the end of December we have no indication when we will be able to organise major events again.”

However, with still five months until the grand prix at the COTA facility, Escott thinks there is still hope for the event to go ahead should the situation show significant improvements in the coming weeks. I think that's a good reason to work hard on social distancing and leave people who are sick at home, so we can get a grip on the situation again,” he concluded.