COTA

Circuit Of The Americas… Making the Grade!

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Autoweek reported earlier this week that Jason Dial, CEO of Circuit Of The Americas (COTA),  has been fired. The board of directors voted Dial out but were scant with details. The implications are that he is the scape-goat for the financial failure that was the United States Grand Prix. There are generally three sides to every … Read more

#F1 Forensics: Top Drivers Lap Times & all new Lap Gap Chart

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Brought to you by TJ13 contributor Tourdog An exciting race it was. The lack of running in the practice and qualifying sessions was a blessing to me, as it meant less work, but also meant that no one had any real idea of pace, setup, tyres, etc. The teams were forced to make educated guesses on … Read more

Unlicensed Marshals standard practice at USGP in Austin

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    Brought to you by TJ13 contributor Mattpt55 Without a large group of trained and experienced marshals, it would be impossible to mount any professional motorsport event, much less a Formula 1 Grand Prix. This being so, TJ13 reveals the shocking fact that the inaugural USGP in Austin was manned by a significant number of … Read more

Daily #F1 News and Comment: Tuesday 19th November 2013

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This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how significant this is and has helped grow our community significantly in the past couple of months – thank … Read more

The Awesome #AustinGP – #F1 Over and Out

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Brought to you by TJ13 contributor Adam Macdonald. With another Grand Prix ticked off the list and stomach full of BBQ food I’m about to say goodbye to Austin.  The Formula One circus has well and truly left town as the city returns to a relatively normal state.  The sport has come and put its stamp … Read more

McLaren record breaking year, Ecclestone says 19 races 2013, Todt referees Ecclestone-Ferrari spat, Webber calls for more European races, Texas pays Austin organisers $29m, Mercedes W03 – a space ship

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Follow thejudge13: Why not follow thejudge13 by email. Click on the button at the top right of the page to receive an email when (and only when) a new article hits the interweb.

thejudge13 archive: I was reminded yesterday by Kevin McCauley that there are new readers coming to the site all the time. There are some articles I have written since the launch of the site nearly 13 weeks ago that they may not be aware of. A lot of the articles though are part of the daily news I’m afraid, hence why I have put a search bar on the right hand side.

If you type “Mallya” into the search bar for example – all the articles that have that string “Mallya” within them (main body not just headings) will be presented for you. However, every few days I’ll put a complete feature from the past just above “On this day in F1” for those of you who missed them. Today’s archive article, “F1: Breeding ground for road car technology? No chance“.

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Amazing Austin: Sowing and Reaping

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F1’s history in the USA

Austin is the 10th American city to host F1 since the first U.S. Grand Prix in Sebring, Florida, in 1959. Watkins Glen, New York, hosted a Grand Prix from 1961-80 and other F1 races have been held in Long Beach, Las Vegas, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix and other cities on street courses.

Yet while these venues have thrown up some amazing pieces of F1 history, for one reason or another they have not really been optimum for holding an F1 weekend for one reason or another. Watkins Glen was probably the closest to what F1 needed as its US home, but despite improvements the circuit became unable to safely handle the increasingly faster cars of the late 70s.

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HRT Engineers worried about safety, Villenueve: ‘Vettel’s a child’, COTA wins Global award, Partially sighted driver wins Indy 500, Rosberg on Schumacher, Alonso/Vettel title permutations, RB to join elite club, US GP record: F1’s smallest winning margin

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HRT price tag 40m euros: Thesan Capital (who we think are Banco Popular in disguise – see news yesterday) have most reasonably come clean today and suggested they would be happy to receive back their original investment of 40m euro’s. I bet they would, these are the last desperate scrabbling to realise some cash back on what was a ridiculous venture destined to fail.

If someone pays Thesan 40m euro then there is still 10’s of millions more for the new owners to find to get the team back on its feet again after paying off the debt. Of course there is the prize money from coming last this year, and whilst prize money in F1 is a closely guarded secret, I believe 12th is worth only about 7.5m euro ($10m). The likelihood is HRT will just cease to exist.

The reason I say this, is because there has been for 3 years agreement among the teams for a 13th team to race. This has never happened due to the inability of anyone to get the required funding for an F1 start up. Buying HRT is worse than starting a new team as there will be debts, unpaid wages, a factory in Madrid that would be better located in the UK – why pay anything for them? The prize money is insignificant compared to the rest of the costs.

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Austinites view F1 like a folk festival, McLaren fundamental to Formula E 2014, Who is the F1 driver chain smoker? Teams sharing garages, 204 less pit stops in 2012, HRT sale forced by bank bailout request

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Bank bailout forces HRT sale: Meanwhile, the team travels to Austin with the minimum staff to compete and avoid a financial penalty from FOM for being absent (as.com). We may well see the cars qualify, start the race and retire the cars after one lap.

thejudge13 has previously reported that HRT are using parts way beyond their sanctioned life and has a debt to repay before December 2nd or face dissolution. Thesan Capital, we believe, is a front for the Banco Popular who applied yesterday for a bailout of 2.5bn Euro’s. The terms of the bailout are that all non-profitable assets of the bank must be identified and disposed of – including HRT.

As to the story that Colin Kolles is interested in buying the team, this is fantasy by Thesan Capital. He was ‘exited’ last December when the debt from Banco Popular was assigned to Thesan Capital who on taking control issued a statement explaining Colin’s departure, “This is due to the new direction that the team has taken and the decision of the new management to move the team headquarters to Spain,” it read. (Yallf1.com)

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Austin will favour Red Bull, Mercedes should’ve kept Schumy not Nico, FOM wants USA GP2, McLaren supply to Force India ends, Huge Brawl, How Maldonado finds an extra 1s per lap,

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Note from the editor: Sorry folks, had a couple of days off – anyway we’re back. I notice quite a lot of you must have thejudge13 saved in your internet browser as a favourite and use this as the way of coming to the site. Over the Winter there may not be an article every day, so if you sign up for the email service (side bar on right at the top), you’ll get an email when thejudge13 has published an article/news AND only then. Anyway some news catchup. . .

Mallya sells, implications for Force India: Shares in United Spirits soared this morning 14 per cent to hit its new 52-week high after Uk-based firm Diageo Plc said that it will acquire 53.4 per cent stake in United Spirits for around $2bn. Vijay, will remain as chairman, however the real power is transferred to Diageo representatives who will take on the roles of CFO and CEO (Economic Times).

This sounds like good news, yet industry experts reckon it will cost no less than $1bn to get Kingfisher airlines back in the sky’s and Vijay has until 30th November to satisfy the Indian Aviation Authorities that the Kingfisher Airlines new business plan is sound – and clear the debts.

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