Bernie is trying to own Silverstone... he's been trying for years... and if they loose the British GP... the value of the track is much less to.. not to mention he can say BRDC is not running the place well, and he should.... That is exactly what he is trying to do! all about $$$$
It's always a little confusing to me trying to determine what Bernie actually wants out of the USGP. He complains about lack of PR in Indy, yet here in Chicago, a city of a few million only 3 hours away, there wasn't a word about it beforehand. However, every year the race still attracted a sizeable crowd, near the top in attendance for any of the Grands Prix I believe. Hotels and restaurants are booked, and the town is basically full. If he expected 250,000 people to attend, then they should have designed an interesting track that took advantage of the Speedway's capacity. They had that tire screwup in '05 and the subsequent finger-pointing and blame-dodging. Basically, they've done nothing to enhance the sport here in the States while expecting us to swallow it up. I've said it before, and I still hold it true. Bernie will never be satisfied with a race in the States because he'll always be a nobody in this country. His big fat ego needs to be massaged as Bernie the F1 Uber Czar. In all seriousness, if he really wants to promote F1 in this country he should come up with a way to tie in his daughter's burgeoning modelling career. We Americans are notorious for embracing mediocre entertainment so long as it includes a shmattering of hotties. One only needs to look at the movie and TV industry to back that up.
My thoughts are that both F1 and soccer along with tour defrance are country sports. The US equivalant would be a state sport like baseball , football and even NASCAR. So folks here don't watch something that we don't participate in . Even the tour DF is not watched after Lance quit . So my bet is that there won't be another USGP in a long time . Regardless of what station carries it we just don't have any interest. This may be hard to swallow for some of you but by not having a GP won't bother the majority of the folks in the US. My 2C
You're probably right. And another thing that BernieCo bumps into with the US a "What's in it for us?" response from potential host sites. Any location worth considering already has enough going on that they don't need a Grand Prix weekend (Vegas, Miami). If your city doesn't already have a full summer calendar, then it's probably not a viable location for the USGP. And they definitely wouldn't mortgage themselves to bring it in, either.
If you read carefully -I said they would not bring F-1 back... AUDI did spend a lot of money at one time, I think the team now is actually run by an AUDI franchisee... in FLA.... none the less ALMS is GREAT but its not F-1
Dont know about the daughter... but Ecclestone always being a nobody is correct and on the money. When you have Billions like him, you dont want to deal with ordinary Americans... which is what he will have to do.... why do that when you can do deals with Sheiks and other heads of state....
F1 (read Bernie) Does not care if anyone shows up for a F1 race! That is the TRACKS problem (if they care) and Tony DOES! Look at the new tracks and proposed new races, India for example, who is going to be able to afford to go. Bernie does not care, that is NOT his problem. In the 80's it cost about 3 million to get an F1 race. Who knows what it costs now. Tony does, and he can't make a reasonable profit, so the Indy race is off the schedule. I was talking to a few Europeans at the USGP and with the strong Euro coupled with the weak dollar, the USGP was a bargin even with the airfair, it was cheaper than their home F1 races. In 86 (when a dollar bought 1.5 marks) I paid 600 marks for 2 seats at Germany's F1 race. So it all comes down to what makes the world go around-MONEY! stephen
Don't think the manufacturers will put pressure on F1 for a USGP as long as all the races can be seen on TV for those who are interested. Stepneygate will not help get a USGP IMVHO. Do manufacturers like M-B have posters in their American dealerships about F1? Are they really using F1 in the US for a marketing tool? When I call the Ferrari Dealership you listen to F1 cars while on hold or being transferred. There are lots of F1 related items for sale in the service department.
Between 8 and 30 million USD, depends on the deal with Bernie. If Tony sold his tickets at $ 100 a piece to 100,000 spectators, he made 10 million. Deduct from that his costs to pay for the 8,000 people running the place and you're very close to the 8 million bottom line. So in reality Tony probably lost money on the deal. Given that, I'm amazed he was willing to bleed for it for 7 years.
Putting words in my mouth I guess.. I didn't say I don't WANT it here, I said we don't NEED it here. We didn't 'need' the USFL or the XFL because we have the NFL. DO we 'need' the NFL ? Well, yes, but I suppose we could live on college football. Do we 'need' football ? That's a silly argument. Does Europe 'need' soccer ? Of course they do. Do they need F1 ? Probably. Did they need the European NFL ? No. Are there more american fans of F1, or nascar ? F1 or baseball ? F1 or the Cubs ? And, you cannot go by TV ratings. You have baseball teams that get 20,000-30,000 or more 81 times a year, most NFL games are sold out, most NBA games are 80%+ sold out, and you fill most (but not all) nascar venues, and then you get 100,000-150,000 to the one F1 race we have... You 'need' whatever is ingrained into your society, and F1 isn't ingrained over here like a lot of other things are, that's all I'm saying, and I'm not trying to tick anyone off. As I have said before, you ask 100 people on the street to name a CURRENT Grand Prix driver, and you will get 'Andretti', 'Petty', 'Earnhardt' or 'I dunno' 99 times. You might get Schumacher for the 100th, but I guarantee you won't get Massa or Alonso or Button.
Penske knows a winner when he sees it, that's why he jumped to the IRL, and trust me: he's too smart to get into F1 unless it's with OPM. Roger brought a lot of money into it, really raised the bar in that respect starting in 1971 when he brought a newfangled car from the UK to Indy. I may hate him for that, BUT, if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else.
