The Formula One teams face a tricky race against time to get their equipment and personnel from China to Spain for the next race, with the current volcano-induced travel chaos in Europe leading to complications.
The teams may find themselves facing some serious issues with their Spanish GP preparations if they are delayed for longer than "three to four days", and some teams are investigating some interesting ways to get around the lack of flights in Europe.
Air travel back to the team's bases are being hit by the current grounding of a number of air routes into the UK and across Europe, due to the ash cloud that has been released by the eruption from the easy-to-spell Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.
There is a severe restriction to flights out of Shanghai over the next few days, with some airlines warning that it might take until "early May" to sort out the backlog being caused by the eruption.
Team personnel might struggle to complete the turnaround from China to the team's HQs and then onto Spain, and a number of workers are likely to be forced to fly directly from Shanghai to Barcelona for the next race, while the freight of the teams might also be subject to delays.
The delays might also hit the planned introduction of development parts in Barcelona, with a number of teams planning major upgrades to their 2010 cars for the start of the 2010 season.
McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh said that the situation wasn't yet an issue, but that there was still little word on the freight situation.
"It hasn't created the chaos yet - it's caused a lot of speculation," Whitmarsh explained in China, "There are lots of people trying to book Trans-Siberian train tickets, and other ways to get home, but I think we will all have a bit of fun getting home - one way or another.
"But we are not so much worried about the people because we will find a way home, but we have got to get the cars back, and we haven't had any word yet from the freight.
"These cars have been away and we've been rotating chassis in fact, but the cars and equipment have been away for some time. We are looking forward to getting that equipment back in the factory as quickly as we can, and make sure we service all the cars properly."
He added: "We have a range of upgrades that we hope to put on for Barcelona so that could be a bit chaotic if we don't get the freight back. As for the people, we have demonstrated that we have incredibly resourceful people in F1 in general, just as everyone in this room will get home – it just might be a slightly more tortuous route than normal."
He also clarified that the teams should be fine with a minor delay, but if the flights are delayed by a week or longer, then there might be issues.
"If it is a week or so, then clearly we have less than two weeks until the start of the next grand prix in Europe and it will become an issue," he explained.
"I think if we lose three or four days we can live with it, if we lose it for a week or beyond then it becomes challenging. Again, we will find a way but that is a bigger concern than getting people home – we will get there."
The volcanic eruption is already threatening other motorsport events, with next weekend's Japanese MotoGP race set to be postponed because of a lack of flights.
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