Yet more bombshells rain down on F1 from the new American owners Liberty Media.
Yesterday, TJ13 broke the story on Liberty Media proposing substantial changes to the F1 weekend:
New F1 owners no Friday practice & two races per weekend
And yet there is more, this time leaking from the Austrian RedBull centric publication Speedweek who are reporting today that Liberty have expanded on their proposals for a shakeup of F1.
Greg Maffei, Liberty’s managing director, appears to be a self appointed chief strategist for the future direction of formula one with a proposal to increase the number of races in the calendar to 25.
“We are currently at 21 races per year. We see the way in the expansion of the program with venues that are more attractive for TV stations and sponsors.
I recognise mainly Asia and Latin America, in the longer term North America, especially the USA, where we have too few viewers, as expandable. But all this does will not be overnight. “
Ecclestone’s dream of more races per year may yet be realised by 2020 when confessed some degree of support for the proposal:
“We can not make more races at the moment, because the contracts with the racing stables prohibit this.” admitted Ecclestone.
“From 2020, this is no longer the case. Whether we will get more Grands Prix depends on the negotiations with the teams.”.
It must be said that a lot of F1 fans would be buoyed by seeing a return to F1 racing in the America’s, particularly in South America. But can the die hard fan stomach a further reduction of European races?
How many tracks want F1 races in a few years. Asia is less interested. Cars become faster again and few tracks are safe enough. Who is going to invest? What a bunch of retards. F1 is getting killed, somebody should make a new F1 in 2020.
Some sites have been reporting that there is a new EU court ruling which demands that all motorized vehicles, be it for normal traffic or racing, should be insured on the public road and on private roads/places/tracks. Which would mean that F1 cars, motorcycles and stuff should be insured for damage they might cause to track workers, the public and other drivers. Which is impossible. Any news on that? Because in that case Europe is effed for racing.
I would have thought most racing tracks and motorsport teams in general will have some form of liability insurance in case of accidents. It’s just an added expense to racing if they haven’t got liability insurance and all the other related insurance policies. Also I expect the cars are already insured in terms of transportation from factories to tracks and back again, so you could likely argue that they are already covered.
As far as European races go ? It needs a core set of races (Spa, Silverstone etc) spaced evenly through a season. Bernie has simply been entering markets for the upfront cash with no regard on the question – Did it add value to F1 in terms of fans and tv viewers. I don’t think it’s a bad idea for Liberty Media to want to crack the North American market along with enticing South America back to the sport. F1 needs to find a balance between the different markets and that likely means the European dominance will fade over time.
25 races is essentially one every 2 weeks. I presume they would not be scheduled every two weeks because that leaves no downtime for rest, recuperation, and rebuilding wrecked cars, or they could go to A-team and B-team traveling mechanics and support people. How much more would that cost?
$52.75.
Per person.
Sounds like they’re going to ruin the sport. I’m planning to stop watching when it goes exclusively to Sky, all this news makes me think that’s a good thing.
If one adds 2 extra races in America and 2 in Asia, there’s no threat to European races.
Of course, there’s no France GP right now, so that might be an issue.
Dark days ahead….
25 GPs? These idiots definitely don’t understand the concept of saturation point.