F1 race at Melbourne Park to have a new starting time

• March
• 12

9:23 am sports

The organizers of the Australian Grand Prix are seriously dwelling on the time change that they intend to bring in for the Albert Park’s race from the 2009 season. They are planning to start the race a little late in the afternoon in an order to satisfy the needs of larger television audience across Asia and Europe. The race slated for Sunday has already been shifted from the regular 2 pm start to a late afternoon start at 3:30 pm to satisfy the audiences across Europe and Asia. The Australian Grand Prix organizers are to ask for cooperation from Bernie Ecclestone on rescheduling the starting time of the race to 5 pm as he has been calling for the race to be a night time event.

The Australian Grand Prix chairman Ron Walker says that if they find an increase in the television viewership during this season’s race, then there are good chances for them to ask for a 5 pm start for the race in 2009. If the 5 pm start gets through, then European audiences can watch the race on the television sets from 7 am; UK audiences will see it start at 6 am on their TV and an afternoon start for the viewers across Asia and they expect hundreds of millions of potential extra viewers for the race.