A few days late, but none-the-less... F1 CEO Bernie Eccelstone is quoted in March 14's Guaridan as saying that F1 is looking to return to the United States, and particularly the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, possibly as early as 2011. A particularly interesting quote (to me anyway) from the IBJ piece: "Ecclestone said Indianapolis had problems, but was probably the best place in the United States for F1. 'It’s only the fact that it’s all the wrong crowd and the wrong people … nothing worked there really, we’d have to have a big change round,' Ecclestone told the Guardian. 'But we’d like to get back there.' Schwartz at the IMS said he has no idea what Ecclestone meant by his comments, only speculating that corporate support might have fallen short of his expectations." http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/mar/14/ecclestone-indianapolis-f1 http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/11481.html http://www.ibj.com/article?articleId=18684 Thoughts? Questions? Rants?
Not going to happen per Indy Star racing beat writer Curt Cavin. (Actually, in his weekly radio show Thursday last week he said it was "bullsh*t".) Bringing F1 to Indy cost the speedway a good chunk of money. It's questionable if they got any return. The person that wanted F1 there is Tony George, who got kicked out of power for spending too much of the family fortune (on not only the IRL and buying ChampCar but also the Formula One race). So the people now in control of the speedway, Tony George's sisters, are far more bottom-line focused, which means no U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis unless Bernie Ecclestone will take far, far less money for a sanctioning rights fee, and does anyone believe Bernie will do that? Hell no. He'd rather get paid a ton by a sheik to race at boring tracks in the deserts of Bahrain with no spectators present. There's a British journalist named Joe Saward who keeps an F1 blog I read. He brought up a list of locations that could be possible for the USGP in a post recently. Pretty much all of them have major problems. He settles on a personal choice of Portland which is...amusing. Bernie wants a race in the streets of New York, which is a pipe dream that will never happen. http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/the-us-grand-prix-where-do-we-go-from-here/ Apparently, sponsors weren't too pleased with Indy because the fanbase there is too much blue-collar when they want the fanbase to be more white-collar. However, that represents the classic divide/difference between European racing and American racing as Saward pointed it out himself saying that European fans are more "wine and cheese" and American fans are more "beer and hot dogs", and F1 sponsors want to cater to the wine-and-cheese set, which if that's the case I think F1 would be best served doing the on-again, off-again Miami street race that CART used to do. The city and race would fit F1 to a tee. Yeah, the racing will be crap but that's never stopped F1 before. Glad to see a person from West Lafayette on here though. Lived on campus when I was 2 years old and was happy the Boilers pulled it out in overtime over A&M.
Boiler Up! Seriously, I've never seen a team go from a likely one-seed to a four-seed with no respect that fast. I know they are worse without Hummel (Duh), but wow that team is underrated. Thanks for the link to Saward piece and the heads up on the radio show. Even still, if F1 does return to these shores, what are the other realistic options? Kind of seems like IMS or nothing and I have read that some of the constructors (Ferrari and McLaren in particular) have been putting some pressure on to return to the US.
Thursday nights on 1070AM at 7. They mostly cover Indycars but touch on other stuff too. Well the U.S. is Ferrari's largest market, and for the global carmakers/sponsors, we still have a lot of money that's not mature since F1 is not really a big deal here. Here's the tracks Saward mentioned: -Indianapolis -New York street race (likelihood: HELL NO!) -Miami street race (former CART event) -Palm Beach (nee Moroso) International Raceway (likelihood: HELL NO!) -St. Petersburg street race (current Indycar event) -Infineon/Sears Point (track is owned by Bruton Smith, so...) -Laguna Seca -Long Beach (current Indycar event) -Palm Springs (huh?) -Las Vegas (for a few years in the '80s there used to be a Caesers Palace Grand Prix on the F1 calender) -Portland Then there's the tracks that should be considered but won't because they're too far from big cities or lack facilities: Road America up in Wisconsin, VIR. If F1 is going to return, they're going to have to sacrifice something. Americans get along fine without the series, it's F1 that wants to be here. Bernie once stated that the problem with American promoters and why we don't have a race is that American promoters want to make money, which tells a person everything they need to know about how F1 operates. If a promoter is not making money, why is he organizing an event? Saward for example after the Olympics failure once proffered a potential event in the streets of Chicago near the Lake Michigan shoreline. I asked him in a response to his post: who would promote such an event? It's going to cost him millions of dollars to build the track and pay the F1 sanctioning fee and he's going to have little attendance in kind to pay off his costs of running it. Bernie feeds off government subsidies overpaying him on a grand scale, and that's just not going to happen in the U.S., at least for auto racing.
That's one of the reasons we have only one GP left in Germany as well, even though with Nürburg- and Hockenheimring we have two racetracks that are very interesting in a car-crazed nation (and don't even get me started on a cityrace in Berlin)
However, as I understand it, the IMS is the only track in the US that meets FIA safety standards and F1 luxery standards. All the other tracks Saward mentions would need tens of millions of dollars of upgrades to hold an F1 event. And considering Tony George's experience spending $75 million in upgrades (there were some non-F1 upgrades as well) only to be dumped after eight years, I can't see anyone else spending the money to upgrade. That is why I keep seeing Indy as the only option. I agree that F1 will have to give something up, and I also agree that any US track should only take on F1 at the right price. I'd peg the maximum viable sanctioning fee for the IMS at ~$15 million. With about 200,000 seats for the road course, ticket prices would be kept in line with those of the 500 on and Brickyard races. But you are probably right, a return of the US Grand Prix would be unlikely under the current business model of F1.
The current business model is definitely the issue. Bernie won't lower the fee under a certain threshold even if he would love to see an US GP. The fact is he would weaken his position the next time he negotiate for an Indian or Russian GP or Dubai ; he and the FOM won't lose scores of bucks now and in the future for just one race ! The US GP definitely needs some kind of backing for any kind of party that would enjoy the global exposure (a state, a city, private companies) otherwise I don't see a viable US event in the current frame. If the economic downturn weathers away, why not Las Vegas ? I think they'd have a point to kick the likes of Macau in the nuts ! Miami would be nice too, many tourist would enjoy this bonus. NYC is a distant dream and the best track IMO would have Road America as a base.
Skip the laps and make it route 66, TV audiences would skyrocket. Not good for live audience, the cars and traffic in the US though.
Would the track be able to keep any sponsorship money? My understanding is that tracks get to keep on-site revenue (tickets, concessions, parking, etc) but that was it.
I've got to admit, that's one of the most original ideas I've ever heard. It's totally impractical, almost logisticly impossible, but a cool original idea nontheless.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/f1/news/story?id=5026669 Bernie wants a US GP in 2012 to be held in New Jersey with Manhattan as the backdrop. Yeah, good luck with that. americangrandprix.blogspot
Slightly less delusional than a race on the streets of Manhattan, but still... Where would one physically put a track for less than a quarter billion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Jersey_Population_Map.png