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I'm not surprised that the 2017 provisional calendar has an asterisk next to the June 11 Montreal date. As I have pointed out in this thread before, Montreal has not lived up to the contract that it signed with F1 in 2014. The city signed a contract that required it to rebuild or renovate various facilities in time for the 2017 race. The city has made no progress in fulfilling this obligation.
Now Le Journal de Montreal is reporting that the cost to do the necessary upgrades is $50M CDN and not just $32.6M, which was the original estimate.
When Bernie made threats about cancelling his contract with Montreal during the 2015 race weekend, Montreal Mayor Coderre assured the public and the press that everything would be OK and that it was just a matter of getting everyone to agree on exactly what needed to be done.
However, I think the truth of the matter is that the city just does not have the money to do the upgrades and the public is not really supportive of this kind of spending.
I don't know what will happen. But if I had to guess, I think the race is safe for one more year. But if the city does not make a firm commitment to start construction of new facilities on June 12, 2017, then that could be the end of the Montreal race.
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