FIA have just confirmed for Nov 18 with remaining schedule unchanged too
http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/wmsc/2011/Pages/wmsc-071211.aspx Press Release *World Motor Sport Council* 07/12/2011* The final 2011 meeting of the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) took place in New Delhi, India, today (7 December). The FIA President, Jean Todt, opened the meeting by thanking Vijay Mallya and Vicky Chandhok for their hospitality and for hosting the week of FIA meetings in India. The following decisions were taken: FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Changes to the 2012 Technical Regulations *All engine standard ECU set up and control parameters, which were formerly contained only within a Technical Directive, are now contained within the relevant parts of the Technical Regulations. *The exhaust tailpipes are now strictly regulated in order to ensure that the aerodynamic effect exhaust gases have on the car is kept to an absolute minimum. *Better marking of in-car emergency switches operated by marshals are now stipulated. *The side impact structures will now have to be subjected to a further (upward) push-off test. Changes to the 2012 Sporting Regulations *Cars may no longer take part in pre-season testing without having passed all crash tests. *There will now be a maximum race time of four hours to ensure that a lengthy suspension of a race does not result in a race that could run up to eight hours if left unregulated. *Before the safety car returns to the pits all lapped cars will be allowed to unlap themselves and then join the back of the pack, ensuring a clean re-start without slower cars impeding those racing for the leading positions. *Cars which were in the pit lane when a race is suspended will now be allowed to re-join the cars on the grid in the position they were in when the race was suspended. *Drivers may no longer leave the track without a justifiable reason, i.e. cutting a chicane on reconnaissance laps or in laps to save time and fuel. *Drivers may no longer move back onto the racing line having moved off it to defend a position. *One three-day test will be carried out during the season, formerly there were none. *All stewards decisions which are not subject to appeal are now in one place instead of being in various places within the regulations. *All tyres allocated to a driver may now be used on the first day of practice; formerly only three sets were permitted. The 2012 FIA Formula One World Championship calendar was confirmed as previously published. FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP The World Motor Sport Council discussed the recent developments involving the Championship Promoter, North One Sport, and its parent company, CSI, which has gone into administration. The FIA is committed to ensuring the long-term commercial future of the Championship and will make every endeavour to provide for its future stability. The FIA is working on an immediate plan to ensure the fundamental sporting and safety elements will be in place for the start of the 2012 season. As a consequence, it was also agreed that the registration date for the 2012 FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers be put back to 19 December. The WMSC agreed that, for safety reasons, a total of 10 tyres of a different compound may be used in place of the nominated compound, when specified as an option in the Supplementary Regulations of an event. The total quantity of tyres to be used during an event will however not change. The date for the 2012 Rally de España has been changed to 8-11 November. RALLYING From 2013, R4T cars will be eligible in the FIA Regional Rally Championships. This new category of four-wheel-drive cars is designed to be cost-effective and more affordable for competitors. The acceptance of different category cars within the FIA World and Regional Rally Championships will be confirmed during 2012. FIA WORLD CUP FOR CROSS COUNTRY RALLIES Following satisfactory Observers Reports, the WMSC confirmed the inclusion of two additional events in the 2012 FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies. The Sealine Cross Country Rally event in Qatar will take place between 15-21 April, while Baja Poland will run from 13-16 September. The date of the Rally of Tunisia has also been changed to 8-13 May to provide for a more balanced calendar. OFF ROAD In the interest of cost reduction and equality among competitors, it is confirmed that one engine and two turbos are permitted to be used in each event qualifying for the 2012 FIA European Rallycross Championship. Any breach will incur a drop of eight places on the ranking obtained before the start of the Finals, in which eight drivers are now permitted to take part in A, B and C-Finals. FIA EUROPEAN DRAG RACING CHAMPIONSHIP From 2012, the length of the competition area for Top Fuel Dragsters will be 1000 feet (304.78m), rather than the traditional quarter mile. FIA WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP The date for the opening of entries is confirmed as 19 December and the closing date for competitors contesting the entire Championship will be 18 January 2012. The Endurance Selection Committee - comprised equally by members of the FIA and ACO - will meet on the 25 January and the final entry list for the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship will be published on 2 February. Exceptionally, additional cars may be admitted for one or more events subject to their conformity with the applicable technical and homologation regulations, and also the interest they will bring to the Championship. These cars will appear in the event classification but will be invisible for the different classifications for the Championship. For the Le Mans 24 Hours event only, the manufacturers entered in the FIA World Endurance Championship for LMP1 Manufacturers may, subject to agreement of the Selection Committee, enter a third car, which will be eligible to score points in the Championship. Only the top two classified cars of a manufacturer will be entitled to score points in the Championship however. The 2012 calendar is confirmed as follows: 17/03 USA 12 Hours of Sebring Sebring* 05/05 BEL 6 Heures de Spa‐Francorchamps Spa‐Francorchamps* 16-17/06 FRA 24 Heures du Mans Le Mans 25/08 GBR 6 Hours of Silverstone Silverstone* 15/09 BRA 6 Hours of Sao Paulo Interlagos 29/09 BHR 6 Hours of Bahrain Sakhir 14/10 JPN 6 Hours of Fuji Mount‐Fuji TBA (Nov) CHN 6 Hours of TBA TBA* * Subject to the ASN confirmation FIA GT1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Following discussions between the promoter SRO, teams and manufacturers/tuners concerning the organisation of the 2012 FIA GT1 World Championship, the WMSC agreed a need to support series Promoter, SRO, in its efforts to secure the future of the Championships in a difficult economic climate. As a result, the WMSC accepted the Commissions proposal to run the 2012 FIA GT1 World Championship with GT3 cars, as the existing field of GT1 cars is no longer sufficient. The World Championship will run side by side with the FIA GT3 European Championship on European events. The 2012 calendar will be confirmed within one week and available on fia.com. FIA WORLD TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP From January 2012, the Championship will be reserved for competitors driving Super 2000 cars as defined in Article 263 of the 2011 Appendix J. In addition, competitors with cars in conformity with the 2010 Appendix J will continue to be accepted on a race-by-race basis together with competitors with cars in compliance of the technical regulations of a national Championship (subject to approval of the Touring Car Committee). The sporting regulations will be available from 15 December on fia.com. To enhance interest in the competition, the distance of a Championship event has been increased. Each race will run over a minimum of 50 kilometres and maximum of 60 kilometres, as defined in the Appendix specific to each event. The system for calculating the compensation weights has been simplified for 2012. The FIA World Touring Car Championship will comprise 12 events in total, three of which will run jointly with rounds of the FIA European Touring Car Cup. The calendar is confirmed as follows: 11/03 ITA Monza Monza 01/04 ESP Valencia* / ** Valencia Ricardo Tormo 15/04 MAR Marrakech* Marrakech 06/05 HUN Hungaroring Hungaroring 20/05 AUT Salzburgring Salzburgring 03/06 PRT Estoril Estoril (subject to the contract with the promoter) 08/07 ARG TBA TBA 22/07 BRA Curitiba Curitiba 23/09 USA Infineon* Infineon 21/10 JPN Suzuka Suzuka International 04/11 CHN Shanghai* Shanghai International 18/11 MAC Macau Macau Guia Circuit * Subject to the ASNs confirmation ** Subject to the homologation of the circuit FIA FORMULA E CHAMPIONSHIP The FIA Formula E Championship is set to start in 2013. The Electric and New Energy Championships Commission has been working on two main points, the first concerns the safety aspects for Electric Vehicles (EVs) and the development of a safety protocol for marshals and rescue teams working at events in which these kinds of vehicles are involved. The second is related to the definition of technical specifications and the issue of two calls for expression of interest, one for promotion which is on-going, and the second for car manufacture, which will be launched in the next few days. All the related proposals will be presented to the WMSC in March 2012. WOMEN IN MOTOR SPORT The Women in Motor Sport Ambassadors programme will be launched during 2012, together with the organisation of the first seminar dedicated to the National Co-ordinators who are designated by the ASNs. In addition, a Task Force will be created within the Commission to identify future talent in the sport. HISTORIC MOTOR SPORT From 2012, Period J1 cars will be eligible for the FIA European Historic Sporting Rally Championship. A number of historic hill-climb and rally calendars were confirmed for 2012. KARTING The following event has been added into the 2012 calendar: CIK-FIA U-18 World Championship & CIK-FIA Academy Trophy (round 3) 01-03/11***** BHR****** Bahrain COMMISSIONS * After a full review of the FIA Commissions, all the Presidents were confirmed, with the exception of the Single-Seater Commission where, due to personal reasons, current President Barry Bland stepped down. Gerhard Berger was appointed as the new President of the Single-Seater Commission. CALENDARS & SPORTING REGULATIONS The WMSC adopted 2012 calendars for a number of FIA series, Championships, Cups and Trophies for modern and historic races and rallies around the world. The international calendar and sporting regulations will be available on fia.com from 15 December. MEETINGS The World Motor Sport Council will meet next on 9 March 2012 (Milan, Italy). * * For Media Information Purposes - No Regulatory Value. Print Version
They sent a check. How much did it contain and/or for how long. 1 year or 5. COTA should be making some kind of announcement. Time for them to be serious!
seems like everything that could have gone wrong already has, and they still paid Bernie. Hopefully smooth sailing till Nov of next year
Picky bunch but they own the world and most of us Lets hope this gets this event going and COTA start answering emails and such for tickets etc. Its nice to see a purpose built track for F1 in the US. Lets hope COTA give the marketing and promotion it deserves.
Now all they have to do is build an entire track and support infrastructure in 9 months, and get the money to pay for it It would be very interesting to see what the terms they worked out with Bernie are.
It's Texas! No problem! Bend over -> Take it in the proverbial! Seems they tried negotiating with him and learnt that lesson PDQ....... I guess they've paid the $25MM sanctioning fee for next year. Plus possibly a commitment for future years? Cheers, Ian
Well, you have "guessed" your way thru all these pages of thread. Contnue "guessing" what the terms of Bernie's contract contain. It's amazing they have come so far as they have with "no money".....I work with Austin Commercial in healthcare, and they really don't go too far with "no money"...it just seems counterintuitive.....
COTAs real issue, as I see it is how quickly they can replace Tavio and Full Throttle Productions with some new entity. As I have said based upon my experience here in Houston, they are "late" in getting the Sales Office and Corporate Marketing side of this 'up and running'. That said, Tavio certainly was (IMO) as well!!! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Except for the money part?? do you really think they're going to pay the sanctioning fee, hoping that they're going to get new investors later on? As per podcast interview with Steve Sexton, tickets on sale after the first of the year
I think I'll just wait a year or so before I go to a race, I don't want to deal with this back and forth drama.
oh. yay. they paid. ....................and I should care by now becausssssssssssssse? At BEST COTA is incompetant...at worst incompetant and coniving....
I am feeling much the same way... Newman/Hass came to Houston, forged partnerships, free lanced a let of the design services (I did some AutoCAD) and then "off we went"...... There certainly no upside to the constant negative media coverage they have gotten recently. No one wants to shell out for reservations and a VIP Suite expense, with all of that going on!
Well Tex, there are guesses, educated guesses and then there is just plain ol' BS. I think I was making educated guesses, which it turns out were overwhelmingly correct - but it wasn't hard when you see the Austin Commercial plan and see they are far behind, or hear the Comptroller statements, etc. Now as for plain ol' BS - that would be like thinking they can just string some electrical wires, or wheel in some stands-on-a-truck, or put some shacks up and it will pass as a world class F1 track
Hasn't reality set in yet? If the whole project was fully financed, they would never have been in breach. Both sides acknowledged payments went unmade for months on end, despite numerous warnings of impending breach and contract cancellation. Also, COTA themselves admitted when this was all first blowing up that "a November 2012 date would have been very hard to meet". It's blindingly obvious - they didn't (or perhaps don't) have the $$. Epstein did who-knows-what to scrape together the $$ to Bernie within hours of the deadline - and he bent over and took the contract that he said had unreasonable/unfeasible terms. That's not how fully financed/money-is-not-a-problem operations run.
How big a boy is Epstein? I can only imagine what McCombs would have wanted in return for putting more money on the table. This has such a good money after bad feel to it. Is Epstein involved because a track seemed like the only way to save his investment in the previously planned housing development? Does anyone else find it impossible to like or root for these guys? Slightly more than a year ago they announced they had in hand all the money necessary to build the track: http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/print-edition/2010/11/05/f1-project-investors-ready-with.html?page=all
I have my hotel reservations, so I'm hopeful. I do need to cancel by 6:00pm on my arrival date though! I do hope they pull it off.
Probably found it in Red McCombs sock. Sounds like he sent the $25m and signed the contract with F1. Sounds like Red is now fully in the drivers seat. Texas said that the major event fund money wouldn't be available until they are sure the event was happening. Not just for the Grand Prix but all events going forward. So from the sound of that it's gonna happen.
You really don't seem to understand the "fair haired golden boy Tavio has Bernie's fondness but NO money...." and the other side of the "people spending $200M tend to want the control, as well as some return on the investment"??? It's small wonder that Tavio couldn't get control of the "whole game".....he was light in the loafers from Day 1. Good "idea man" and as it turns out pushing him aside probably cost them some money, bottom line. Yes the stands will be modular rentals. Just like in New Jersey!!
