Brit GP from Silverstone to Donington

[donskar]

Sorry all.

RE: Donington getting anywhere; sorry if I missed it . . . ): Gillett is quoted from an interview with ITV.

SHOULD have read: RE: Donington getting British GP. Interesting piece from grandprix.com. I haven't seen it posted anywhere; sorry if I missed it . . . ): Gillett is quoted from an interview with ITV.

I post from work. Sometimes must hurry. The boss. . . .

[DaveKillens]

Donington is the track where Senna drove one of his greatest races, the 1993 European Grand Prix, Donington.
http://atlasf1.autosport.com/99/dec15/lupini.html

[WhiteBlue]

The announcement is completely consistent with an investment by a private equity company. Such finance deals usually involve a great deal of leverage and a defined exit strategy such as an IPO.

Donington seems to be a lot more adept at marketing going by the mentioned debenture scheme. Such a thing would never work with Silverstone because the BRDC member priviledges would wreck the value of paid priviledges in comparison.

I assume that the Silverstone deals have included free paddock passes for all BRDC members which must have been a massive pain in the back each year for Bernie to watch. He doesn't like give aways unless the courted person is likely to invest a great deal of money in business.

[guy_smiley]

(sorry, can't quote posts from the computer i'm on but...)

i completely agree with those/all who say it's simply about money. in other threads i've expressed my desire for F1 to race on all the old/lost classic tracks only with upgraded safety features, and here we lose another classic in silverstone. but unfortunately it's not about how great the circuit is, it's about how much money the event can make. i'd also like to agree with modraban on his post about Hermann Tilke redesigning the Donington Circuit. Tilke's (re)designing every new circuit has stuck with me for a while now. His designs don't seem to be very inspired to me. Where is his 'Spa'? Please don't respond to this saying that turn 8 and Turkey is his 'Spa.' Turkey, despite turn 8, really means nothing to me in terms of what makes a track great. I don't understand why Tilke has this monopoly on F1 circuits. They all seem the same to me--the same corners only in different orders. I would think a designer great enough to design an F1 circuit would come up with something original and different each time. Obviously the designer has to incorporate an overtaking opportunity or two, but why aren't any of the new tracks like the old Osterreichring only with more runoff? If we are building new circuits or re-building old circuits, why not make them Osterreichrings and Brands Hatches and Watkins Glens and Suzukas and Old Hockenheims only with more safety features? Instead they are Malaysias and Shanghais and Turkeys and absolutely worst of all, the new Hockenheim. I do look forward to the Valencia and Singapore Street Circuits, but these aren't replacements for the true greats. Anyway, back to the topic, if Tilke can redesign the circuit into a great track (at least as great as Silverstone) I'll watch it. I'll be very disappointed to see it turn into another "Tilke (& Bernie) GP."

[WhiteBlue]

It is true that money decides a lot in F1. And we all know that Bernie is very clever in terms of marketing. That is why he has grabbed most of the money.

Unfortunately the man has too much influence on circuit designs by making all the decisions where F1 goes racing. He should be given more of a framework what he can do and cannot do.

If the teams together with the FIA and some fan representation define the mix of circuits and specify that there have to be at least two or three competing designs things could be improved. with mix I obviously tals about street and road races and perhaps some more long mountain tracks like Spa.

But unless such things are forced on Bernie they will never happen.

[Chaparral]

From Whiteblue -If the teams together with the FIA and some fan representation define the mix of circuits

Thats just pain naive or stupid to suggest that - its as silly as fans determining the next Pink album should be a bunch of classic AOR tracks with a orchestral background Secondly why would you think the FIA would even contemplate listening to the fans - they conducted that enormous survey a couple of years back and despite 97,000 replies never EVER implemented one of the recommendations on the survey. Its a business - if they can't get it right with all the collective years involved then the business will go elsewhere - I hope it does


PS Donington will never happen

[WhiteBlue]

...why would you think the FIA would even contemplate listening to the fans....

because they acted on a number of issues voted by the fans.

• ban of TC by introducing standard ECU
• imposing a brief on the teams to cut downforce and turbulence to improve overtaking and go back to slicks
• saving Spa against Bernies wish to taske the race elsewhere

It takes a high prioirity on the fan list to get some action but the FIA do care about the spectacle and the fans to a certain degree despite the propaganda to the opposite. I don't have any illusions though, that they would listen to attempts of minorities or obscure ideas of myself . Nevertheless this is a board to vent ideas and discuss their benefits or demerits. So I wish that instead of names calling (naive and stupid) we should be doing that.

[modbaraban]

• saving Spa against Bernies wish to taske the race elsewhere

Ehem... BE backs the event at Spa, that's why it's there, isn't it?

[ben_watkins]

There's some interesting things brought up in this article by Ted Kravitz..

http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type ... z&id=43306

Namely the Radar from East Midlands airport plays havoc with all the radio gear for broadcasts [radio cameras etc] as well as the team radios, telemetry and so on. [-X

Access is a big issue. With the airport so close and the M1 - getting 100k people in and out for a weekend is gonna be hard!

Take a look at where the track is located..

http://tinyurl.com/67frwr

[WhiteBlue]

• saving Spa against Bernies wish to taske the race elsewhere

Ehem... BE backs the event at Spa, that's why it's there, isn't it?

Bernie hasn't kept Spa for the money. Spa's promotors went bankrupt twice. He now runs it because it cuts out the middle man and minimises the gap to what he can make from the race compared to another Asian or Arabian race. Do you know a reason Bernie keeps a race that will not give him optimum profit?

Regarding access people tend to forget that Donington is just 3-4 km away from motorways to the North, East and South. There is plenty of space to put in a bit of new dual carriage way for instance along the northern airport perimeter. But this is only one option. Compare that to more than 30 km of the A43 between the M1 and the M40 that had to be redone with dual carriage ways to create the Silverstone access. The councils around Donnington will find their expenses for this kind of business opportunity very adequate.

The radar is a bit of a mess but it isn't an unsurmountable problem. Modern radar technology can use low energy narrow bandwidth focused angle radar with multiple emitters that cuts out the radiation from the circuit.

[bazanaius]

I think the worry is not that the race will affect the airport, but the other way around. I'd imagine the airport would not be very keen to change all its radar equipment just so F1 could race once a year.

[WhiteBlue]

For this thing to happen all the stake holders will have to make an effort. The airpoirt is set to get a lot of new business and they will have a long agenda of issues anyway.

Some details about the rework at BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 499078.stm

[mcdenife]

whiteblue wrote

The councils around Donnington will find their expenses for this kind of business opportunity very adequate.

Why should or would the councils pay for this even assuming they could afford the expense? and there is also the compulsory purchases that would be require for expansion which they have not even begun to consult on. No, as Ted said, they would be hard pressed to find money required let alone the time.

[WhiteBlue]

They have the plans for more than a year and have been buying property in edition to the original park. I guess they know what they do. As for the access road or roads why would it be payed for Silverstone from taxpayers money to attract racing business and then not for Donington at a much smaller amount?

[Conceptual]

It is true that money decides a lot in F1. And we all know that Bernie is very clever in terms of marketing. That is why he has grabbed most of the money.

Unfortunately the man has too much influence on circuit designs by making all the decisions where F1 goes racing. He should be given more of a framework what he can do and cannot do.

If the teams together with the FIA and some fan representation define the mix of circuits and specify that there have to be at least two or three competing designs things could be improved. with mix I obviously tals about street and road races and perhaps some more long mountain tracks like Spa.

But unless such things are forced on Bernie they will never happen.

I think that along this line of thought, why not simply auction off the race weekends? That way, the tracks themselves compete for the races, and Bernie is completely removed from making the decisions.

Set the calendar, and then auction the dates. You can even make certain consecutive dates tied to general areas, IE: Europe, North America, Middle East, Far East, South America. So you would have 2 races in North America in a set 2 week period.

Obviously the tracks that bid would have to comply with OBJECTIVE FIA SAFETY STANDARDS, not necessarily the subjective decision making that is currently in operation.

Chris