Bernie threatens Australia !

[nigelred5]

Bernie is just doing what he does, asking for more money or he else he'll go to the next Arab or Far Eastern state with billions burning a hole in their pockets.

F1 could do with Bernie retiring to a nice beach somewhere.

See, Bernie has more contracts for future races than he has weekends the teams will agree to participating in. He needs to drop a race for Russia next year doesn't he? follow the money, and you will find Bernie. He conveniently lost the USGP for a while, picked up a few multi million contracts with new events, and then he thins the herd. Then once he has the $$, like for instance Valencia, sees that it's a failure on just about all accounts, he moves on, drops the race, adds another. so now we alternate german venues, likely alternate, france and belgium, possibly valencia and Barcelona, or jsut loose one altogether. Bahrain looks to me to be a hug e longshot for returning, Korea was and will be a waste of time. Shanghai, same IMHO. I understand dumping races noone attends, but he dumps popular well attended races that STILL can't meet his financial demands for races NO ONE attends simply because someone has a fat bank account. India was suprizingly well attended, AbuDhabi is an amazing facility and much more western and stable politically than Bahrain, and I think Singapore has been a success by most accounts, but most of the other tracks added in the past ten years have been total failures commercially. As was tried a few years back, F1 needs a budget downsizing IMHO.

[ioan]

Doesn't Bernie find a reason to threaten to take away the Australian GP about every four or five years?

More like every year, about 2 weeks before the season starts.

He is like a used car salesman that graduated to pimp

That's exactly what the situation is. Spot on.

[ioan]

It's not as simple as that. As I've stated many many times, lower fees mean less money to the teams and that's bad for F1.

Really? That means that the model is flawed and should be changed. In fact there would be enough money for the teams if it wasn't for someone else pocketing the largest part of it.

[DexDexter]

Really? That means that the model is flawed and should be changed. In fact there would be enough money for the teams if it wasn't for someone else pocketing the largest part of it.

I agree with that in principle but current contracts are what they are. I'm sure Bernie & co would still make a nice profit even if they got something like 20% less money.

[BDunnell]

See, Bernie has more contracts for future races than he has weekends the teams will agree to participating in. He needs to drop a race for Russia next year doesn't he? follow the money, and you will find Bernie. He conveniently lost the USGP for a while, picked up a few multi million contracts with new events, and then he thins the herd. Then once he has the $$, like for instance Valencia, sees that it's a failure on just about all accounts, he moves on, drops the race, adds another. so now we alternate german venues, likely alternate, france and belgium, possibly valencia and Barcelona, or jsut loose one altogether. Bahrain looks to me to be a hug e longshot for returning, Korea was and will be a waste of time. Shanghai, same IMHO. I understand dumping races noone attends, but he dumps popular well attended races that STILL can't meet his financial demands for races NO ONE attends simply because someone has a fat bank account. India was suprizingly well attended, AbuDhabi is an amazing facility and much more western and stable politically than Bahrain, and I think Singapore has been a success by most accounts, but most of the other tracks added in the past ten years have been total failures commercially. As was tried a few years back, F1 needs a budget downsizing IMHO.

Bernie deserves much, much more criticism than he has ever received for the Bahrain fiasco — and he's been on the receiving end of quite a lot. The whole affair is a disgrace.

[Rollo]

As a taxpayer... please take it away Bernie. I don't really want to be subsidsing your salary.

I'm writing a letter to my local MP and to the Minister for Immigration and Customs asking them to deny the little imp entry to Australia on the grounds that he is an extortionist.

Go away Bernie. Please sit on the pointy end of a pineapple.

[ioan]

I agree with that in principle but current contracts are what they are. I'm sure Bernie & co would still make a nice profit even if they got something like 20% less money.

They've already got too much, could start giving back something to the sport that made them filthy rich.

[ioan]

Bernie deserves much, much more criticism than he has ever received for the Bahrain fiasco — and he's been on the receiving end of quite a lot. The whole affair is a disgrace.

Exactly.

[CNR]

when you look at how many australians are in f1 in one way or another i do not see why it should be 55 million per year

[DexDexter]

when you look at how many australians are in f1 in one way or another i do not see why it should be 55 million per year

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't it all start when Melbourne wanted the F1 race at any cost? I doubt they'd be paying such a huge fee in Adelaide.