F1 2025 Hungarian(Budapest) GP Pre-Race Thread

Personally, I don't agree with the taxpayers money being spent for the enjoyment of the elite.
France is a country with an enormous budget deficit already.

 

The important 'car industry' can pay the Liberty fee.

 

Millions of F1 fans are the elite?

Governments often subsidize true elite entertainment projects such as theaters, operas etc. How about doing something for the masses?

 

Yes Macron has expressed his desire to see France have a GP again but there is not a penny for that.

One anecdote about how touchy the public here is with use of public funds. Gerard Larrousse (an uncle in law I see about once a year, not at all talkative but with a huge memory) once told me that when he was head of Renault F1 he wanted to sign Niki Lauda but the unions knew that would be a huge salary paid for by a company that was then fully or majority owned by the state. Because of this and the inevitable fuss they would have made he had to give up on the idea.

 

Your uncle in law is Larousse? Impressive. Well, he got Prost and Arnoux. Not a bad combo.

Wasn't it Mitterand who pushed for Nevers so the GP track and event would create an economic stimulus for the region?
Regardless, GPs shouldn't be just seen as pet projects that cost a lot of $. They also generate a bunch of tax income for the government and do create a temporary boost for a particular region due to the fans going there. Let alone the prestige a country gets by having a GP.

 

It will be the 40th edition (39th anniversary) of this new Hungarian F1 GP - just to mention I was there in 1986 for the very first edition (after a 30-hour trip in train from Marseille).

 

Chapeau!
Wasn't easy in 1986 while the iron curtain was still in place. I went there much later when it all was "Western" and easy.

Regardless, people tend to forget that this "Soviet anomaly" has become one of the F1 races with the longest tenure on the calendar. Only few places of the current schedule had more races.

 

Thanks for circling it - might otherwise have been difficult to notice the missing bits!

 

Joe, thank you for the photos. Isn't it sad that the caravan trucks are prettier than the F1 cars?

 

Socialist president Mitterand allocated funds for the enlargement of Magny Cours in the early nineties and the money went to a friend of his who was a road construction magnate and also a racing team owner...his name was Guy Ligier. Lots of envelopes under the table there...for decades.

Mitterand also had had a relationship with a woman who was very prominent in the small village of Magny Cours.

Typical of him, he had a manor house restored secretly on tax payer funds to give a place to live for...his mistress and illegitimate secret daughter...

Mitterand went to the GP at Magny Cours a few times, giving trophies on the podium but his right wing successors never set foot there because it was considered his creation.

 

Zut alors! I had no idea.

I remember Guy well. "Met" him once in the Hockenheim paddock. I *LOVED* the Ligiers, they were different. And Laffite/Pironi. Good times.

 

Yep, Mitterand really created an economic stimulus for the region (I quote) !! Lol It's called hanky-panky !
He served his interest with the taxpayers money.

 

Ligier really vexed me when I wanted to interview him for my Maserati the Citroen years book in 2011, 2012, he just ignored me stubbornly despite the fact that engineer Michel Tetu, Jean Pierre Jabouille and Jacques Laffite all asked him for me as well. Tetu was a great interview, Laffite a very cool one; this was for my chapter on the Ligier Maserati JS2 road and racecars.

Then Ligier's grandson told me he had really bad memory, did not like to dwell on the past and was ageing badly.

I spent almost an hour at Retromobile in February this year with Jacques Nicolet, who bought Ligier from Guy, he told me the old bear took a shine to him and eventually out of the blue told him: " I want you to buy my company."

 

Typical of a politician.