valencia GP

Daily #F1 News and Comment: Friday 28th June 2013

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This page will be updated throughout the day GMT   10:50  11:20  13:00  15:40  18:40 Marko Watch The big news this weekend is of course the now imminent departure from the sport of Mark Webber.  Helmut Marko has confirmed this morning that Sebastian Vettel will get a say over who partners him next year in the … Read more

Alonso will not drive in Jerez, Valencia street circuit falls into ruin

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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.

I have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to use them for updates.

Testing: An interesting development from Ferrari. They have announced today Alonso will not take part in the first pre-season testing in Jerez. Massa will get the first 3 days, and De La Rosa will drive on the Friday. The explanation from Ferrari for giving De la Rosa some track time is, “it will allow both the team and the driver to work specifically on looking at the correlation between the virtual and the real experience. The work of assembling the new car goes on: yesterday the engine was fired up for the first time.”

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Ferrari announce… no launch date, Helmut Marko: Alonso too political, Nurburgring still not confirmed, Banks close to seizing Mallya’s assets, F1 car evolution

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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. I may be changing the way I publish articles, so that instead of updating the main daily post, 3-4 articles a day go out. If you don’t want to be bothered by an email each time you can ‘manage your subscription’ from within any of the emails you receive and set the frequency you desire to say ‘1 max per day’.

I have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to use them for updates.

2013 F1 calendar: Our favourite subject. At risk of getting reader DwilD started again, I’m afraid there is more to report. Having said that, I don’t remember a season in recent times where the number of issues on the calendar are yet subject to uncertainty.

Yesterday tj13 reported potential unrest in Bahrain. The week before Christmas we had the bizarre scenario of Barcelona claiming they knew nothing of the widely publicised bi-annual sharing arrangement with Valencia (LINK) and Valencia’s surprised response (LINK).

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Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1.

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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.

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