Ferrari Restricts Unnecessary Travel In Response to Coronavirus

Ferrari has restricted noncritical business travel, and it is limiting access to the factory as a response to the increasing cases of the coronavirus in Italy particularly.

The team’s Maranello factory is in the region affected by the country’s outbreak of the virus. Hundreds of cases have so far ubeen reported in Italy, and there have been 11 casualties.

During the past week, the propagation of the virus has unfortunately led to Italy becoming the worst affected state.

The northern part of the country is where the cases are concentrated, leading to the shutting down of various areas where several quarantines have also been enforced. The first town that was shut off was Codogno, southeast of Milan.

Though the Barcelona F1 testing program is not affected as yet with the personnel traveling to the test on their usual charter plane, Ferrari has reviewed the operations, including all of the day-to-day activities at headquarters.

The Ferrari team released a statement saying they have defined the precautionary measures to manage the alerts of the current coronavirus.

As requested by the authorities, the museums in Modena and Maranello have been closed, and the firm has restricted access to the workers who are residents or have visited the municipalities in recent days.

They maintained the situation is being monitored, though new measures are going to be effected and communicated if they become necessary. It is not yet clear though how the developing situation in Europe overall, is going to affect F1.

On Tuesday, Bahrain, which hosts the second round of the Formula 1 championship, said they were temporarily suspending all flights from one of the major hubs in Dubai.

Vietnam also stated the International Challenge Badminton event, which was supposed to take place in Hanoi before the Vietnam grand Prix was postponed.

The outbreak of the virus in China also forced the Grand Prix host platforms to postpone the event scheduled to take place in Shanghai in April.

Formula 1 chiefs and the FIA is also monitoring the situation in Hanoi, where villages close to Hanoi were under lockdown after the emergence of several coronavirus cases.

Formula 1 is also monitoring the situation in Vietnam and elsewhere, considering the FIA issued a statement on Wednesday saying that it would take any action necessary to protect staff, personal and fans.

In Barcelona the teams are going to resume the pre-season testing on Wednesday, McLaren has restricted access to the motorhome to anyone that has visited the Chinese mainland during the previous three weeks.