Alonso upsets Turkish fans with quip about crowd numbers Sun 07 Jun, 10:40 AM -Crash.net Double Formula 1 World Champion Fernando Alonso has been demonstrating how not to make friends and influence people after quipping that so low are the crowd numbers in Istanbul for the Turkish Grand Prix, come the end of the weekend he will likely know all of the spectators by name. It is understood that only 40,000 tickets have been sold for one of the less popular events on the annual F1 calendar when the Istanbul Park Circuit can cater for a capacity of 120,000 and when the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, whose place Turkey has taken on the 2009 schedule, could regularly boast entrance figures of up to 300,000, the Spaniard suggested that it was something of a waste. Though his joke may not have been received well by the local media, they perhaps had the last laugh as the man from Oviedo was able to qualify just eighth in his Renault two tenths shy of the two Ferraris just in front of him despite once more running with easily the lightest fuel load in the field. ***** Great track but Montreal needs to come back and soon. There is no way Turkey can survive. I bet its gone for next year. No money, no race!
^Montreal hands down delivers the best race every year. But at the same time, i think Turkey has a great track.
Canadian officials didn't grease Bernie's palms enough. Too bad, as the MGP was a pretty substantial economic driver for the area as well as being an exciting track. Admittedly, I am biased (being a proud Canadian) but the Montreal track was a far better circuit than Tony George created for the USGP at Indy. Either way, North America needs a race to truly call F1 a global series. Anyone who saw the race on TV obviously knew that Alonso was only making a humorous, honest observation. Cheers-Colin Firth -Ontario Canada
Actually loosing the Turkish GP would be bad, because it is a great circuit. Let's first get rid of Bahrain, China and Hockenheim. To name a few truly boring Tilke tracks.
Yes and no: It is normally a truly boring race for us TV spectators, but it is a great race for anybody going there: Budapest is a fantastic city, easy transport/access to the track, lots of things to do, great support races and you can view many parts of the track. Having been to many GPs all over the world, Budapest stands out as one of the memorable ones. Unlike the highly respected Monza or Silverstone, which were boring to painful as an attendee.
Hungary is not going anywhere - I believe its one of the races Bernie owns the rights to as promoter.
Hmm, interesting, that would explain why it is still in the calendar despite constant rumors of getting axed. That said, I thought Bernie also was the owner of some part of the Turkish GP and that one is supposed to have its last race next year. Bernie owns a lot of things, doesn't necessarily mean much. For instance Le Castellet and nobody is using that anymore, not even for testing.
But as a promoter (well, a REAL promoter..) only makes money when he puts butts in the grandstands. Chris Pook worked his ass off the get Long Beach going in the 70's, and while it's true F1 helped him out a bit when the chips were down, it was a decent venue as well. Apparently, F1 venues are decided by who has the most money (as are most things anymore), and after that the excuse falls back to motel rooms, and roads leading to the circuit (ability to handle traffic - or so they say). Lots of locations have the facilities but no money, and lots of places have no facilities but do have gov't financial backing, these things appear to be mutually exclusive.
I watched the BBC broadcast of the race and one of the commentators said that the track only gets used once per year and it's for the GP. Did I hear that right? I can't believe that! I am surprised the track can remain open with that little of income. All the while North America goes without a GP......
They said the same on the Speed broadcast. I was pretty surprised that it's used once, just once all year. Either way I agree that Montreal needs to come back. I loved the races there and hoped to one day attend one.
I love Indy. Its a great historic facility. They treat spectators wonderfully there. You can sit anywhere you want except on race day. Great paddock. Many places to view the race. Tickets were reasonable compared to Europe. It is my favorite racing experience in the world and like others here I have been all over to see races. The city and people are great. Montreal is a great track and city, the race facility is not that good. Moving around the facitlity is tight with many bottlenecks. You can only sit in your assigned seat even for practice, so viewing is restricted. Hungary needs help. I usually attend each year and each year the place looks worse. Crumbling stairs, tiny paddock, wooden unmarked grandstands etc. Bernie owns the place and makes a good profit from what Ive been told. My wife is from the city and support for the race is strong but ticket prices vs actual ability to go is tough. Certainly a bailout from the Hungarian govt at this time would be problematic. I can see this race going away even with Budapest being a fun place.
Brazil was good just because the title was decided there in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Not to mention MS's power drive in 2006. But taking into account the SC periods, the track falling off, nothing beats Montreal. PLus, it's in the middle of the season!
what do you guys think of the Singapore F1 night race, I personally dont think its all that great, .. not much room for overtaking makes it dull for me
Well, the antics in the pits makes up for the boredom on track? And we've seen, earlier this year, what happens to stewards' decisions when it's late and they want to go home. ("No, he just passed me." "Okay, I guess we don't need to listen to the tapes until Wednesday.") Let's connect the ditz: - Max is alienating the classic teams - Bernie is abandoning the classic venues F1 of tomorrow: The Obscura team beats out Yugo at the Bangladesh GP (when the Yugo team had trouble fitting "D" cells at the pit stop). If you're going to ruin F1, I guess you have to forget the euro fans and look for new TV viewers who don't know what's missing.
Like watching paint dry, other than the novelty of racing under lights, not an exciting circuit, like most street circuits it is interesting to look at but provides poor racing.
