Italian GP Archives - Page 3 of 3

It’s not possible to in a single article convey the mess that is F1 and its financial arrangements, and I’m not feeling inclined to write a book. Yet there are severe storm clouds on the horizon for F1 and it appears the governing body and the teams are oblivious to this.

The Korean Times reports the organisers’ of the F1 race are facing again huge losses. It is claimed they have avoided the contractual 10% escalation in fee from last year but still have a total budget of $67.5m to find.

The national government picks up about $5m and the rest is shouldered by the South Jeolla provincial government. Of course there is the ticket receipts, but the event has not been a raging success with mass crowds attending. The losses the provincial government has had to fund are 2010 $65m and in 2011 $54m. With a contract to 2016, local commentators are not sure they will be able to fulfill this commitment.

The inevitable has happened! Nope, not Eddie Jordan being right again as he was 3 years ago when he called Schumacher’s return – the inevitable is the angle of the stories which abound about Lewis Hamilton in the mainstream media.

“Hamilton is taking a big risk” (David Croft, Sky website).

Joe Saward, much respected long standing F1 writer says in his blog, “it will be a leap of great faith [Lewis has] in the German-owned operation, but may be a decision that the British youngster will one day regret”.

Martin Brundle tweets, “Statistics +gut feeling say Lewis has taken a big gamble”.

I could go on. These stories are the natural evolution from the stories written following the leak that Hamilton was in negotiations with Mercedes. The general themes of those articles back then were …that it was illogical to leave McLaren for Mercedes…surely Lewis would stay with a proven race winning team rather than take a risk…it’s all just negotiating rumours…it’s not about money.

Again, I could go on. Yet as I wrote last week (again getting lots of stick) I heard that Lewis was being pushed by McLaren. Of course no one was saying telling Lewis to “do one”, but the writing was on the wall in giant red letters 10m high.

Let’s also forget the “I heard” something (as I suggested in the last article) and look only into the scattered tea leaves.

Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1.

Lewis had no choice. He was pushed.