Australian F1 GP set to clash with AFL

The Australian Grand Prix will clash with the AFL season next year, but the league is confident its crowds will not suffer.

The Formula One season will stretch to 19 races next year with a later start and finish.

It will open with the Australian round on March 29 and finish with a new race in Abu Dhabi on November 15.

The 2009 AFL fixture list has not yet been finalised but officials said the grand prix would be staged on the same weekend as either the first or second round.

AFL media manager Patrick Keane said the league was confident its crowd numbers would not be affected.

The grand prix went head-to-head with the AFL in 2006, after the race was bumped from its traditional season-opening date but Keane said football crowds that season were the third best in history.

"In the past we have worked around a number of other events and we hold talks regularly with other sports events and governments," Keane said.

"In 2006 we worked around the grand prix, we didn't schedule any games in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon, we played at Geelong on the Saturday and played games on Saturday night.

"As long as you give people notice of when their team will play it is not a problem."

Abu Dhabi, with a new harbourside street circuit, will become the second grand prix in the Middle East after Bahrain on a calender that otherwise features the same countries as this year.

The Gulf state will be the only new venue after street circuits in the Spanish city of Valencia and a night-time race in Singapore this year.

Brazil, previously the season finale, will become the penultimate round instead after a Far East swing through Singapore, Japan and China.

India and South Korea are hoping to make their debuts in 2010 while Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone would like to include Russia and the United States.