Is Italy next to go?

[jens]

We can't keep losing traditional venues.

We can't, but Mr Bernard Charles Ecclestone doesn't care.

[jens]

Surely even 'the poison dwarf' isn't that stupid (or money driven) that he would sacrifice Monza for a race around a carpark in Azerbaijan?
.

If Bernie could sacrifice Germany - the heart of Europe and country with most front-running F1 competitors right now - then Italy is nothing for him.

[driveace]

There was a breakaway ,or competitor to F1 founded by some guy from the middle east, where all the cars were the same,with drivers from different countries.But that folded after about 3 years
As regards Spa,I am told that the Dwarf takes over the circuit for the race and pays a paltry sum for it's use .I was told that by a lady that owns a camp site very close to the site

[AndyRAC]

You can't blame the circuits for seeing sense and deciding not to pay for the 'privilege' of hosting a F1 race. What do they get out of it?? Very little. I don't want to hear Silverstone moaning about no government backing, etc just don't pay. Too many circuits exist almost entirely around their F1 race; and make circuit changes just for F1.
What a strange sport F1 is; many drivers having to pay to drive, circuits having to pay huge fees just to host, etc

[BDunnell]

Is it dying in Europe because the traditional European events are being farmed off to any nation with a dictator and a cheque book? Or are races being moved because interest is dying off?

Both. I think it's in a vicious circle, the diminution of F1's presence on free-to-air television not helping also.

[BDunnell]

Everyone looks at the success of football and the deals that were nutted out at the creation of the Premier League and very quickly forget that before 1989, football was an almost non-existent thing on telly.

Yes. Also, they forget that your average Premier League weeknight match between mid-table teams with little to play for gets tiny viewing figures in the UK.

Formula One on telly in the early 1990s was mainly on free-to-air across Europe and it was then that pay-TV networks eyed the potential for monetisation; which is where we are now.
The BTCC remains on free-to-air because they'd rather been seen by eyeballs than cashed up subscribers. Formula One though, would rather shake its viewers upside-down until the cash falls out of their pockets.

It's odd. Despite the reversed grids, weight penalties, fiddling with boost levels, unnecessary pegging-back of rear-wheel-drive cars and so forth, the BTCC is the only motorsport series in which I remain truly interested. I wonder why that is.

[BDunnell]

If Bernie could sacrifice Germany - the heart of Europe and country with most front-running F1 competitors right now - then Italy is nothing for him.

Germany I don't think is quite that simple. I know Ecclestone (why do we who don't know him call him by his first name?) makes it all but impossible to run a non-governmentally-bankrolled F1 venue these days, but the Nürburgring, at least, has been appallingly mis-managed. Also, F1 viewing figures in Germany have fallen off and crowds at the circuits likewise. The country's public seems to have fallen out of love with F1 post-Schumacher, despite Vettel.

[BDunnell]

You can't blame the circuits for seeing sense and deciding not to pay for the 'privilege' of hosting a F1 race. What do they get out of it?? Very little. I don't want to hear Silverstone moaning about no government backing, etc just don't pay. Too many circuits exist almost entirely around their F1 race; and make circuit changes just for F1.

And look at Silverstone — a circuit ruined by the demands of F1. I think it was Nigel Roebuck who wrote recently that the 'improvements' demanded, and apparently accepted, by Ecclestone have made the place look more like an incomplete building-site than ever it did before.

Governments shouldn't have to pay, because there should be enough money in the sport to see it through without state hand-outs, but the sport's current economic model renders this almost impossible.

What a strange sport F1 is; many drivers having to pay to drive, circuits having to pay huge fees just to host, etc

I fear the whole house of cards is closer to collapse than many of us fear.

[anfield5]

Because that worked so well for Indycars.

It did work for Indycars in that the breakaway series (IRL) became the leading series very quickly. Teams who stay with the original series started to move across, and eventually when the two series recombined it was the IRL that stayed, the old PPG Indy series had to in effect join the new series, rather than the other way around. Sure the IRL made some concessions, but they were only concessions.

If a breakaway F1 series started, with all of the teams, and the support of circuits such as Hockenheim, Silverstone, Monza, Spa etc it would succeed.

[anfield5]

There was a breakaway ,or competitor to F1 founded by some guy from the middle east, where all the cars were the same,with drivers from different countries.But that folded after about 3 years
As regards Spa,I am told that the Dwarf takes over the circuit for the race and pays a paltry sum for it's use .I was told that by a lady that owns a camp site very close to the site

A1GP series folded because all the cars were the same and the quality of the drivers was quite poor. The idea of a nations cup of GP racing was doomed from the start. It was too contrived, plus the circuits it raced on were not good and the racing never caught the attention