Next year's Australian Formula One Grand Prix will go ahead as planned, Australian media reported on Friday, after the coroner investigating the death of a race marshal at the 2001 race said he would not stand in the way.
The opening event on the 2002 Formula One calendar is scheduled to take place at Melbourne's Albert Park raceway on March 3 although it had only been listed as "provisional" pending the coroner's outcome.
But on Thursday, the last day of a two-week hearing into the death of race marshal Graham Beveridge, coroner Graeme Johnston said any safety improvements he recommended would be capable of being implemented before the race and would not stand in the way of it going ahead.
The coroner's recommendations are due to be released in mid-January, more than a month before the first practice sessions on February 28.
The race organisers have already outlined plans to increase the height of the fences at the circuit and to seek safety assessments from independent experts.
Beveridge, 52, died when he was struck by a flying wheel from the wreckage of a collision between Canadian Jacques Villeneuve's BAR and German Ralf Schumacher's Williams.
The wheel shot through a gap in the safety fence and hit him in the chest at about 175 kilometres per hour.
- Reuters