"Long Beach GP Up for Grabs?" F1 moving from Indy?

They (F1) were supposedly nosing around the New York countryside recently, too. I've said it before, and feel just the same today: These are Tony George's halcyon days. As the IRL becomes relatively more powerful, the more he risks losing some/all of its control. And Bernie Inc. is going to bleed Tony dry if he wants to keep the Grand Prix come renegotiation time.

 

Ideal would be to have both, but if I had to make a pick, I'd go for Long Beach (despite the fact that Indy is a lot easier for me to travel to). The good thing at Indy is the one turn on the real track. The rest of the track is a bad joke (the infield).

Long Beach OTOH has a very nice ring to my ear (despite the fact, that it ended my countryman Rega's career). Glitz and glamour and a challenging street circuit. Real F1 tradition (Andretti on the Lotus comes to mind) and in general a car friendly environment of Calif.

 

Rumor was that Bernie was looking for a site for an ADDITIONAL race in the US.

ChampCar has a contract with Long Beach through 2005 (next year's race)

Speculation is that F1's contract with IMS runs through 2006.

It will be interesting to see what happens this year; Tony can't seem to get any momentum with IRL. As it stands, I doubt IRL will ever race at Long Beach. F1 will probably not, Chris Pook said flat out that the infrastructure upgrades that Bernie would demand could probably not happen due to lack of space, as quoted below. F1 can't just keep expanding into developing nations, China is a good long term play, but the manufacturers and sponsors no doubt want more exposure in the (current) largest market.

LA or somewhere near NYC are probably the only places that F1 wants to go, they already ***** about the "facilities" in Indianapolis (hotels and such, not the racetrack, although one can argue about the nature of the track layout, i.e. no elevation changes, etc.). I wonder if Laguna is anywhere near being an FIA facility, I would guess that it would have to be widened significantly. But some of the money that Mazda has been throwing at it has to have helped.

So it will be interesting to see how this all ends up.

 

Actually I thought the deal with Indy was in its last year in 2005, but anyway. The sooner somebody rips it out of Tony's greedy hands the better. Tony managed to kill CART. Then he managed to make the most boring track in F1 out of a glamorous racing stadium. Then he killed of Ferrari Challenge cars in Indy and now he is even heckling over the Ferrari National meet in Indy. The guys is the ultimate idiot.

Laguna Seca is a great track, but lacks all the facilities including real grand stands etc. Another great venue would be Road America or the Glen, but similar problems there.

The sad thing is, that this country has some of the greatest racing stadiums, but they're all ovals. There isn't really a top notch road racing circuit (with infrastructure) anywhere. Time to build one.

 

I'll bring the beer.