The Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) announced that the March 16 event in Melbourne would be the second race on the 2008 calendar and would start 90 minutes later than usual, at 1530 local time, to cater for European television audiences.
Max Verstappen put Red Bull on pole position for Formula One's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday, with seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton alongside on the front row for Mercedes.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Sauber's Mexican rookie Esteban Gutierrez were handed three-place grid penalties at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday for impeding rivals in qualifying.
Vitantonio Liuzzi kept his cool in a rollercoaster of a race to finish seventh and win six invaluable points for Force India while Karun Chandhok was among the 14 drivers who lasted the distance in the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on Sunday.
The Indian Grand Prix could be moved to the second weekend in December as Formula One's season-ending race, Ferrari principal Stefano Domenicali said on Friday.
Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg put Mercedes on pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday and ended team mate Lewis Hamilton's hopes of a hat-trick.
Lewis Hamilton will launch his bid to win the drivers' championship at a third F1 team when he makes his much-anticipated debut for Ferrari in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Chinese Grand Prix winners Red Bull have ruled out a major design change to their Formula One car before next month's showcase Monaco race.
Ferrari are having their worst start to a season since 1981 but they are unlikely to make any major improvements to their car until Formula One returns to Europe after next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix. The Italian team failed to win a point for the third successive race since the start of the season in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, leaving the champions bottom of the standings and drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen seething with frustration.
Ferrari's Brazilian driver will lose 10 places on the starting grid for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix after his car's engine was replaced.
Ferrari introduced their F2005 at the last race in Bahrain, advancing its debut in response to Renault's domination
Narain Karthikeyan said although his aim is to finish races, now he is also thinking about collecting points as the season progresses.
Formula One plans to start its coronavirus-ravaged season in May after cancelling this weekend's opener in Australia on Friday and postponing the next three races in Bahrain, Vietnam and China. Confusingly, while Formula One said in a statement it expected to begin the championship in Europe at the end of May, the governing FIA's statement referred to May 1. Both may prove optimistic as the virus spreads across the continent.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone gave the new Bahrain International Circuit a ringing endorsement after his first visit to the venue on Monday.
Formula One has no qualms about holding a grand prix in Azerbaijan next year despite concerns raised by rights activists, the sport's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone said on Sunday.
Germany's Nico Rosberg took Mercedes' second successive pole position in qualifying for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday.
Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel won the Grand Prix in Bahrain on Sunday while rage boiled beyond the circuit among protesters who say the ruling family that crushed Arab Spring demonstrations last year should not have hosted the race.
Lewis Hamilton assured activists that he would not let human rights issues go unnoticed.
Protesters blocked several roads and police fired teargas at a school in Bahrain on Sunday, activists said, as the Gulf state staged a Formula One race promoted by the government as pure sport but seen by the opposition as a public relations stunt.
Bahrain could replace Australia as 2010 Formula One season-opener while Canada may also reappear on the calendar, BMW-Sauber boss Mario Theissen said on Thursday. Australia has hosted the season-opener since 1996, although Bahrain took the slot in 2006 when the Melbourne race was moved back to avoid a clash with the Commonwealth Games in the same city.
Finland's Valtteri Bottas took his first Formula One pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday with a sizzling lap that ended Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton's bid for a seventh in a row.
The German driver seized the lead at the start from team-mate Charles Leclerc on Sunday but was soon reeled in by the 21-year-old from Monaco, who passed Vettel on the sixth lap in only his second race for Ferrari.
Reader Vilas Deshmukh spotted McLaren's Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain.
Formula One's governing body included the Bahrain Grand Prix and set a December 11 date for India on Thursday in a revised calendar that appeared divorced from reality.
Bahrain has paid the hosting fee for this year's Formula One grand prix even though the race was cancelled, commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone was quoted as saying on Monday.
Bahrain refused to give up hope of rescheduling its postponed Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday with a statement that kept all options open.
The Schumacher name will return to Formula One next season with Mick, son of Ferrari great and seven-times world champion Michael, announced on Wednesday as a race driver for the US-owned Haas team.
Bahrain has been given an extension to June 3 to decide whether the country's postponed Formula One Grand Prix can be rescheduled this year.
Former world champion Damon Hill has spoken out in favour of Formula One returning to Bahrain this year despite continuing civil unrest in the Gulf kingdom.
Felipe Massa and Ferrari won the race and deservedly so but we were clapping for India. And it felt incredible.
The Gulf Kingdom will start the 19-race season on March 12, with Malaysia following a week later on March 19 and then Australia on April 2.
Force India reached the giddy heights of second place in the Formula One constructors' championship on Sunday after Mexican Sergio Perez secured only the second podium finish in the team's history.
India's Formula One debutant Karun Chandhok, who got his super licence on Sunday, says he'd like to see seven-times champion Michael Schumacher beat Hamilton this season.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel has joined the bandwagon of drivers opposing the newly proposed aggregate qualifying format of the Formula One. According to the latest qualifying format, a driver's two best laps in each of the three knockout sessions will be combined in order to determine the grid position. Meanwhile, the 90-second qualifying format that saw the drivers get eliminated one by one rather than being dismissed at the end of each session in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and in the Bahrain Grand Prix would be dropped. Hitting back at the new format, the Ferrari driver compared the new system with the circus and insisted that the F1 should focus only on racing, the Guardian reported Echoing similar views, Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff described the new format as `madness` and said that all the teams wanted to revert back to that of the previous season.
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday in a triumphant return two weeks after appendicitis surgery as Red Bull's World champion Max Verstappen suffered his first retirement in two years.
\n\nOrganisers expect some 100,000 race fans and say 70 percent of the tickets have been sold so far for this weekend's first Grand Prix in the Middle East.
Formula One has agreed to accept two new teams, including a U.S. entry proposed by NASCAR team owner Gene Haas, commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone said on Sunday.
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