Red Bull Forꦦmula 1 team principal Christian Horner admits the cancellation of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix due to the coronavirus outbreak was “frustrating”.

F1 called off its season-opener in Melbourne following an outbreak of COVID-19 in the paddock, with a member of the McLa🌄ren team contracting the flu-like disease.

After a meeting held by teams and F1 officials on Thursday night, it was😼 announced that the opening round had been abandoned less than two hours before the schꦚeduled start of free practice.

“It’s obviously frustrating,🔜” Horner said. “The situation glob𒐪ally is changing hour-by-hour and day-by-day.

“When we arrived in Australia the intention was to go racing but unfortunately followiꩲng the positive test of a person within the paddock the decision was made to cance🌄l the event.

“Ultimately the safet🥃y and wellbeing of staff, the fans and the paddock is hugely important.”

Red Bull was among the teams in favour of go🍌ing ahead with the race, but it is understood that after a 5-5 tie in a team vote, Mercedes changed its viewpoint and subsequently sent a letter to F1 and the FIA to request the cancellation of the event, ultimately setting off a chain of events that led to it being called off.

“We were minded to monitor the situation,” he explained. “The local ಌhealth authority was giving the go-ahead for the event, the FIA were giving the g🅷o-ahead.

“There was a majority that were in favour of running and doing more screening tꦓoday in the event of any more outbreaks.

“That obviously changed following the meeting with teams changing position so the pro🍌moter had no choice but to can🌜cel the event.”

F1 has also called off planned upcoming👍 races in Bahrain and Vietnam, adding to the already postponed Chinese Grand Prix.

There are major doubts over whether the Dutch and Spanish gra𝓡nds prix in Ma🦂y will be able to be staged, with the season now expected to start at the end of May at the earliest.