2012 Valencia GP in doubt

Austerity measures are forcing a drastic revision of Spanish regional budgets. Today the Valencian government has declared that it was revising all its sports event plans, and that "nothing is sacred". I would not bet on a F1 GP in Valencia this year, unless the contracts are very tight. You can forget it in 2013. Sad.

 

Sad that they are in that position, not sad to lose that race because its a lousy track 9though I'm sure its a great "event". There are much better circuits they should be racing on.

 

Agreed.

 

Couldn't have said it better Myself!

 

Having been there I can tell you it is not: The city doesn't embrace the race at all: Unless you are right in the modern harbor area where they held the Americas cup and now the race, you wouldn't know a F1 GP is in town. Barely any signs in the old town, barely any festivities or specials. And the seats around the track suck.

Go to Monaco, Montreal or even Indy (while it lasted) and you saw/see how a town celebrates its race. Valencia doesn't. This race was added to the calendar when Alonso was winning and the Spaniards had money to go to the races. With the current Ferraris Alonso is a runner-up at best and the economic woes have decimated the attendance.

Time to pull the plug. Fine by me.

PS: What is really sad is the fact, that Valencia actually has a great road track. But the powers that be decided against beefing that up to F1 standards and opted for the race around containers instead. Pitty.

 

Fully agree. It's even boring on TV. The wanna-be Monaco track can leave the calender imo.

 

Finally. One of the most boring tracks ever.

 

The question is, what replaces it? Turkey? Imola? French GP? Nurburgring in addition to Hockenheim? Would be nice to keep it in the Euro Zone, or can you do a one off in Indy (I Know that would not happen, but being immediately after Montreal it could work?) as a preview for Austin?

 

You can hardly blame the local government for not wanting to fill Bernie's pockets with the taxpayer's money. Better bring back one of the tracks we want to see races on.

 

The level of Spanish interest in F1 is insufficient to support and justify two GP's in Spain each year.

Valencia was probably never a good idea, a part from the boring track.

 

http://planetf1.com/driver/18227/7414590/Valencia-hopes-to-renegotiate-contract

 

Be no great loss IMO.

 

If I ran the world, I would keep Spa every year and replace Valencia with a French GP.

 

Drifting OT here, but please bear with me; The track was built "around" the fancy expensive yacht basin built for the America's Cup, correct? Did that make money? Or another "white elephant"?

Reason for asking is it's coming here (the S.F. Bay) next year and they're spending many $ doing a similar thing in the City for it - Hopefully it's a good thing, but then the question becomes "what do we do with it once the Cup moves on?" - Valencia answered with a boring F1 track, but I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time......

Cheers,
Ian

 

This brings up the topic:: "What would Bernie do if no tracks were willing to caugh up the $25M for an F1 event?" That is zero, zilch, nada, on-one.

 

He would do what every good businessman does: Adjust the price.

Ultimately he needs the tracks to stage the races and to cash in on the TV rights, which I think is an even bigger money pot.

But as long as there are enough countries willing to cough up the big bucks, he won't have a problem. And last time I looked there were more GPs and GP candidates than slots on the calendar.

PS: Lets not forget that parts of the money goes to the teams. So lets get off the "greedy Bernie" bandwaggon. He is greedy, but so is everybody else in this BUSINESS.

 

+1 and then some. Post of the New Year so far!!! I know at times I forget the teams are not wonderful little angels

 

Your question is incomplete and therefore meaningless.

The correct question would be "Did that make money FOR THE VALENCIAN TAXPAYER?"

And the answer to that is obvious. No, it cost them. A lot, as does the GP. Valencia as a region is totally bankrupt and riddled with corruption. America Cup and F1 came to satisfy local goverment big egos and fill the pockets of the usual suspects, at the taxpayer's expense. It worked, but now it's over, cause all the money's gone! It's all actually pretty disgusting.

By the way, Valencia is ruled by the conservatives. Here both sides are as bad, and don't tell me it's different anywhere else.

 

From the above link:

"The government of Valencia has confirmed that they are looking to renegotiate their contract with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
The Spanish port city has hosted the European Grand Prix since 2008 and their current deal, which is reportedly worth €20.5 million per race, runs until 2014.

However, Vice-President of the Generalitat Valenciana Jose Ciscar says they are looking to reduce costs and plan to write to Ecclestone".

I'd say there's more chance of the Marussia F1 Team taking both the WDC and the WCC in 2012 than Bernie dropping his fee on a contract that's already been implemented!

(And losing Valencia would probably suit him just fine anyway!)

 

OMG!

Within a few days I managed the post of the New Year as well as the most USELESS thread on here. I'm glad I'm covering both angles of the spectrum. FAUX News calls that "well balanced".

 

Only the best!!!

 

From Planet F1

First it was Valencia who was looking to renegotiate their F1 contract and now Barcelona is reconsidering its hosting of motor racing events.

The government of Valencia revealed last week that they are looking to renegotiate their deal with Bernie Ecclestone for the European Grand Prix as they want to reduce costs, and now officials in Catalonia have gone a step further by admitting that they could be forced to scrap the Spanish GP at the Circuit de Catalunya.

"We may reconsider holding Formula One and motorcycling Grands Prix here," Catalan economy minister Andreu Mas-Colell said during an interview with RAC1 radio.

"It is not clear whether we can do so in the current climate.

"It is not the first thing we will reconsider, but in times like these we have to look line by line at what we are spending money on."

Catalunya has hosted the Spanish Grand Prix since 1991 and MotoGP fixtures since 1992 and the current deal runs until 2016.

Mas-Colell, though, warns that breaking contracts isn't always the best option as they sometimes cost more than hosting the race.

"There are contracts that are more expensive to maintain than to break," he added

 

With Barcelona now on shaky ground it's time to do a quick review on where we stand:

Questionable GPs:
- Barcelona
- Valencia
- Korea
- Turkey
- Austin


New GPs:
- Russia
- Mexico
- Argentina
- NY
- South Africa

5 on the endangered list and 5 potential newcomers. Seems only logical.

In addition there will be the GP of France, which will alternate with Spa, which by itself would probably not survive economically.