Mexico City A1GP World Cup cancelled

The A1GP World Cup of Motorsport has been cancelled in Mexico City due to the swine flu outbreak.

Round eight of the 2008/2009 season, which was due to take place on May 22-24 in Mexico City, has had to be cancelled following the UK Foreign Office's warning not to travel to the country after the recent outbreak of the flu.

"To say we are disappointed to have to make this call is an understatement," said A1GP chairman, Tony Teixeira.

"When the news of the health problems broke last week we made sure we kept ourselves up to date with the latest information.

"It soon became obvious this was not an isolated health risk, and when the UK Foreign Office put out its advisory and the World Health Organisation raised the level of influenza pandemic alert that was when we had to make our decision.

"We must have the safety of all members of the A1GP community as well as the thousands of loyal fans in Mexico City as our prime concern," he added.

The Brand's Hatch race this weekend will now be the final round of the championship. The cars had been due to fly out to Mexico after this week's race, but Mr Teixeira said "it would have been a waste of time and money" to fly them out there.

Going into this weekend's race there are three teams A1 Team Switzerland, A1 Team Ireland and A1 Team Portugal who can still win the trophy. This will mean the title race will go down to the wire as none of these teams can win the title in the Sprint race.

The permutations to the race are numerous and complicated meaning it will be a real cliff hanger. If nations are tied on points at the end of the season, the number of victories will determine the champion. If that is the same, it is number of second places, then third places and so on until a winner is determined.