http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=352053
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21976.html
So what do we think about the British GP's chances at Silverstone? I would think that the BRDC is as much entitled to a risk sharing arrangement as is the Hockenheim circuit.
In fact all the big names in F1 circuits have prospered on special deals by Bernie. Monaco pays nothing for the priviledge of hosting F1 because they make huge infrastructural efforts to host the race. But that is true of Singapore as well.
Monza has never been in danger and pays a lot less than other European venues because Ferrari would would have Bernie's stones for a dog meal if Monza was left of the calendar.
The US GP has always made less money for Bernie and that should be agnowledged as well. CVC needs to do a big investment in risk sharing to get the sport off the ground in the US. Actually the US should have a northern summer and a southern winter event IMO. SoCal would be perfect for that purpose. Long beach or a purpose build facility with elevation changes in reach of LA or Las Vegas would be the thing to do.
The suggestion to do more races and let CVC share the risk of traditional venues making a loss seems entirely sensible to me. That way the circuits can figure in the necessary investment and greedy CVC can raise their race fees by 7% annually. If the market does not bear the squeeze they will be saddled with the miscalculation instead of the race promoters. If their projections are correct they will make a lot of money.
F1 in the long run IMO needs to think truly global and needs to find 10 or 12 races in the southern hemishere. There is no real reason why the holiday season needs to be 4 months any more. Nowadays there could be 6 weeks of holiday brake and two more substantial brakes in spring and fall. That way the summer could run mainly the traditional European and north American season.
So lets see if we can get 10 "winter" venues together:
- Bahrain
- Abu Dhabi
- Dubai or other South American venue
- SoCal
- Brazil
- Australia
- Malaysia or Singapore
- South Africa
- Turkey
- India
This is actually not looking all that bad. Summer events could be:
- Canada
- Indianapolis
- Spain
- Italy
- Monaco
- France
- Britain
- Germany
- Belgium
- Hungary or East European replacement
Lets also assume that:
- Canada and Indy
- China, Japan and Korea
- SoCal and Brazil
- Malaysia and India
- South Africa and Australia
would be back to back fly aways with one week between them. The rest of the races would be spaced by two weeks.
This calendar would take 39 week to run without holidays. So 13 weeks of holiday can be spread over the whole year. If we take 7 weeks of winter break we can still have two 3 week brakes after some of the 2 and 3 ender fly aways.