Future Grands Prix?

[henners88]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Silverstone has a long term contract going past 2020 (I cannot remember the exact year). However it is also expensive.
I believe GP's should be able run without government support but Bernie has got to greedy for that in most cases. The other factor is the current court cases mean that government will be less likely to give money to an organistion that is tainted with corruption (not always the case I know).

I'd like to think a long term contract secures its future but as we know, contracts mean nothing in Formula One. It costs so much to host a race, its almost non-viable for most investors. As a UK tax payer I would be most upset if our government were giving away millions of pounds to line the pockets of greedy investors or to give Tamara another yacht to holiday on.

The whole process has got greedy to the point its starting to have damaging effects. The TV deal is the most obvious example with audiences dropping like flies, but hey its OK because they get slightly more revenue in the short term. When less and less fans are watching the races on TV or attending races, I wonder if the penny will finally drop? I think it will take the teams and sponsors to step in before anybody takes any notice quite frankly.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bella

i have to agree with you, it's difficult to fault large indian and other asian companies for not getting involved in f1.

how do you advertise using a western capitalist monolith with no clear message to a new market? f1 isn't saying "spend money and this will happen" like celebrities promoting designer products, or "buy this car and the ladies will love you". it's just waving a massive wad of cash and shiny things that most people will never understand the details of.

imo, formula one only works as a marketing tool in countries where there is a vivid national memory of the glory days. otherwise, what are you selling? what image and reputation are you selling to people?

and anyone criticising the indians for having such a huge gulf between the rich and the poor should carefully consider their own glass house before they throw stones. the gap is increasing pretty rapidly in the uk, in europe and in the states.

Oh well you still have these guys

http://www.pitpass.com/49630-A-Grand...-the-Balearics

and an endless supply of politicians ...

[bella]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

I understand Bellas comment about being critical of third world countries when the first world is being crushed but I have lived and worked with people in India and Nepal for the most of the last 12 months and I understand what goes on and why things are the way they are.

you kind of missed out a vast number of industries and just simplified india to airlines and bollywood though. those industrialists get their money from somewhere, all you're referring to is the service industries which are only important in the west because we don't make anything of our own any more :/ there are a reasonable number of florishing, indian owned large businesses that have contracts with chinese companies for supply and western companies for buying kit. they're not struggling, and they have some very sensible indian businesspeople in charge (though the same can't be said for middle management sometimes ). companies dealing with export aren't doing too badly, they have a cost effective product that is often made in the same way or with the same machines that the chinese or western customers would use.

in india, you must pay someone for the right to do everything. in china, you do it anyway, and give the government official who enabled it papers to come on holiday to the west and some spending money for his wife. in the uk, all you need is a government contract to print money. bribary and corruption is everywhere, it just wears a different hat.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by bella

you kind of missed out a vast number of industries and just simplified india to airlines and bollywood though. those industrialists get their money from somewhere, all you're referring to is the service industries which are only important in the west because we don't make anything of our own any more :/ there are a reasonable number of florishing, indian owned large businesses that have contracts with chinese companies for supply and western companies for buying kit. they're not struggling, and they have some very sensible indian businesspeople in charge (though the same can't be said for middle management sometimes ). companies dealing with export aren't doing too badly, they have a cost effective product that is often made in the same way or with the same machines that the chinese or western customers would use.

in india, you must pay someone for the right to do everything. in china, you do it anyway, and give the government official who enabled it papers to come on holiday to the west and some spending money for his wife. in the uk, all you need is a government contract to print money. bribary and corruption is everywhere, it just wears a different hat.

Spot on.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by henners88

Can anybody really see the British GP surviving another 10 years?...

They seem to be attempting to push its popularity away from the countries that have supported it since its incarnation and into economies where they feel they will get more money. Short sighted if you ask me.

the apparent failure of India aside, i do feel that BE does deserve some credit for moving races to more non traditional places and in many ways he foresaw the crisis in Europe before it happened. if he had held to the status quo in the 90's we would be looking at a severely diminished calendar with a formula that wouldnt be cost effective to compete in except for a couple of teams.

so do i see the British GP, and or several of the other traditional races, surviving the next 10 years.

maybe its a bit doom and gloom, but for any of the races to be around in 10 years something drastic need to happen. a low cost formula seems like the logical way forward but only if those low costs are then passed on to the fans who attend races. thats the crucial aspect which i feel has been lost by the move to non traditional sites. they stopped caring about how many people show up live.

tickets need to be cheaper and they need to offer more value at the track. i still have the Laguna Seca Moto Gp event fresh in my mind and what they offer and the price they charge stands in stark contrast to an F1 weekend.

[bella]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

the apparent failure of India aside, i do feel that BE does deserve some credit for moving races to more non traditional places and in many ways he foresaw the crisis in Europe before it happened. if he had held to the status quo in the 90's we would be looking at a severely diminished calendar with a formula that wouldnt be cost effective to compete in except for a couple of teams.

i think you allude (sp) to it in your second paragraph, but all he's done really is put off the inevitable - the money is evidently drying up elsewhere in the face of all sorts of other political and financial situations and crises.

f1 has a big ass ton of technical knowhow, r&d skills and resources and some pretty cool toys. right now, we need to forget about the racing and look at how that can be made relevant to people, sponsors and industry as a whole to keep the sport going because there's not much demand for it currently. formula e could well be stealing a march on them in that respect, and i'm half expecting f1 teams to each start producing a car for that formula in '15. it'll become formula 1 by osmosis, if the fia play their cards right.

[chillibowl]

yeah rereading my post i did allude to it and to be honest without your second paragraph i would have been at a loss to explain it away.

you are right to say that it was inevitable but perhaps that is what has bought the sport enough time to use its knowledge to embrace a different formula and evolve into something new and fresh.

that would certainly not be a plan by design though so i guess i am giving BE credit for the unintended consequences of his greed!

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bella

you kind of missed out a vast number of industries and just simplified india to airlines and bollywood though. those industrialists get their money from somewhere, all you're referring to is the service industries which are only important in the west because we don't make anything of our own any more :/ there are a reasonable number of florishing, indian owned large businesses that have contracts with chinese companies for supply and western companies for buying kit. they're not struggling, and they have some very sensible indian businesspeople in charge (though the same can't be said for middle management sometimes ). companies dealing with export aren't doing too badly, they have a cost effective product that is often made in the same way or with the same machines that the chinese or western customers would use.

in india, you must pay someone for the right to do everything. in china, you do it anyway, and give the government official who enabled it papers to come on holiday to the west and some spending money for his wife. in the uk, all you need is a government contract to print money. bribary and corruption is everywhere, it just wears a different hat.

Great post!

I don't think the West's military adventures in 3rd world countries help Bernie's cause and what F1 represents much either!

[Beetle]

I don't know nearly enough about Asian economics to add anything of value to these ramblings about the demise of the Indian Grand Prix so I'll add some side info on something I do happen to know quite a bit about:

Sochi 2014 may just turn into Vancouver 2014, according to a few articles I read recently, rendering it even less likely that there will be a street race in what will probably just turn out to be a ghost town of abandoned, halfway finished stadiums. Oh, where's that link when you need it?!

I'm not trying to "spout my political injustice", to quote bella... just delivering the news.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

the apparent failure of India aside, i do feel that BE does deserve some credit for moving races to more non traditional places and in many ways he foresaw the crisis in Europe before it happened. if he had held to the status quo in the 90's we would be looking at a severely diminished calendar with a formula that wouldnt be cost effective to compete in except for a couple of teams.

so do i see the British GP, and or several of the other traditional races, surviving the next 10 years.

maybe its a bit doom and gloom, but for any of the races to be around in 10 years something drastic need to happen. a low cost formula seems like the logical way forward but only if those low costs are then passed on to the fans who attend races. thats the crucial aspect which i feel has been lost by the move to non traditional sites. they stopped caring about how many people show up live.

tickets need to be cheaper and they need to offer more value at the track. i still have the Laguna Seca Moto Gp event fresh in my mind and what they offer and the price they charge stands in stark contrast to an F1 weekend.

I agree the fans who show up live need to be offered a product that is more value for money. Silverstone is stupidly expensive from the off. Food and drink are not even worth purchasing at the circuit and a lot of that has to do with the extortionate fee's the vendors are charged for being there. Like Laguna Seca its much the same at Silverstone for the MotoGP too. The price is significantly lower to attend and everything else is cheaper on the whole too. Its just greedy F1 unfortunately. India has paid the price this time. Spa was only reinstated to the calendar because of popular opinion and a bit of a price cut. Australia and Canada have hosted races with reduced fee's which suggests some races are important to the calendar. I just hope the British GP is considered in the same light. It is a blue ribbon race after all.

Race going fans aside I also think F1 needs to reassess how it delivers its coverage to those fans who also watch at home. Expecting fans to pay at least £50 a month to get full access is extortionate in the extreme. I wouldn't put myself into debt, even for the sport I have loved for so long. there are many like me too and I think Bernie has realised the Sky exclusivity hasn't really worked. In tough economic times cuts have to be made by all and it really wasn't the best time to put the price up. More bums on seats whether its live at the race or live at home is what keeps the sponsors happy and really makes the sport what it is. The whole thing has brought negativity to the sport and I think/hope we will see more done for fans in future years. For F1 to be considered the pinnacle of motorsport, it really needs to be popular and have a fan base that care what is going on.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bella

you kind of missed out a vast number of industries and just simplified india to airlines and bollywood though. those industrialists get their money from somewhere, all you're referring to is the service industries which are only important in the west because we don't make anything of our own any more :/ there are a reasonable number of florishing, indian owned large businesses that have contracts with chinese companies for supply and western companies for buying kit. they're not struggling, and they have some very sensible indian businesspeople in charge (though the same can't be said for middle management sometimes ). companies dealing with export aren't doing too badly, they have a cost effective product that is often made in the same way or with the same machines that the chinese or western customers would use.

in india, you must pay someone for the right to do everything. in china, you do it anyway, and give the government official who enabled it papers to come on holiday to the west and some spending money for his wife. in the uk, all you need is a government contract to print money. bribary and corruption is everywhere, it just wears a different hat.

I used airlines as an example. There was never an intention to provide a full analysis of India's economic woes and mismanagement so its not an over simplification, just a couple of indicators that something isn't that well done.

You are correct when you say the money that is there has to come from somewhere. It does, but its only a small proportion of what should be there.

There are some businesses doing OK at all levels but business as a whole is operating at only a fraction of the effectiveness of what it could be and the success of some well run companies doesn't make a significant difference to the overall distortions that occur economically across the Indian system as a whole.

The systems in India are overly pedantic and confused in an unnecessary way and getting things done by officialdom can be incredibly difficult at all levels.
I don't think I targeted the subject of corruption and bribery in my original piece but yes, corruption occurs everywhere. The difference between India and many western countries is that in many (not all) parts of India the ability of people in middle management to do significant harm to individuals in preventing them from actually bettering their lives with integrity discourages a majority from acting with a degree of social conscience and integrity that would benefit the nation as a whole.
That may seem like a simplification and it is a generalisation, but it is a part of the overall pattern and it happens with monotonous regularity in Indian society.

This is more than just the same thing wearing a different coloured suit, or the emperor changing his clothes depending on what culture he comes from, so I while I recognise your point about corruption being in all cultures to some degree, the way Indian society works is a major contributor to India's economic and social inequity in a way that doesn't affect other major Asian and western societies

[bella]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

This is more than just the same thing wearing a different coloured suit, or the emperor changing his clothes depending on what culture he comes from, so I while I recognise your point about corruption being in all cultures to some degree, the way Indian society works is a major contributor to India's economic and social inequity in a way that doesn't affect other major Asian and western societies

i have to agree with you. as business has picked up in india, it has become increasingly clear that whilst china has been through the "industrial revolution" that we in the uk and the rest of the west went through, india is kind of stuck in the middle of its own process. it's the bureaucracy, business practices and corruption that are going to stop it reaching the same levels of competitiveness as china has done. new businesses are springing up to exploit various factors including a cheap workforce, but like you say, they're only going so far because the culture is stopping them truly exploiting the market. i mean, one of the indian organisations the company i work for deals with is a pretty good study of how indian culture is getting in the way of doing business there. after setting up a factory in india, the chinese decided they'd far rather it happen on their own soil, with their own people, and just commissioned a turnkey project from the indians and let them run it in china. i think that was a very smart decision.

mind you, i don't think we really know the levels of abject poverty that some people live in in chinese cities nowadays. there's not exactly press freedom there, nor is there adequate statistics and reporting. beetle is fond of the air pollution stats for india, well big chinese urban sprawls are no better. during our own industrial revolution we weren't exactly breathing clean air either. in russia, people native to sochi are being turfed out of their houses and workers treated inhumanely to finish the olympic project, and after that the f1 project too. it WILL be finished, because it's state funded and the state will do whatever it takes, however difficult that may be to align with a supposedly modern and democratic country with the improved human rights and civilised society that comes with it.

the thing is, the more you think about the rapidly developing economies like china and india and the very perculiar monolith of the russian federation, the more it becomes increasingly apparant that the corruption and heightened bureaucracy in those countries suits f1 perfectly

[Teretonga]

I have a friend who works in China and she says that 70% of her cities new buildings are half completed inside or its just a shell. People are investing in buildings because there is nowhere else to put any excess disposable income and so buildings go up as a shell and remain there until someone wants to live in them and then they are finished off level by level, but it could take years...

She says there are huge disparities for local people but her work is mainly in providing services for expatriates and wealthy Chinese so she's insulated from the really poor quite easily.

All economic development in Asia is fragile, depending on government and social leadership to provide a pathway to prosperity. However absolute power (common to many of those societies in one form or another) corrupts absolutely, and the lack of parameters in some nations is going to shape progress one way or another.

For the sort of money they pay Bernie/CVC the Asian nations could combine to provide a solid international series that would really crate a regional structure and ladder to provide a pathway that could develop some real talent and national/regional motorsport industry that would enhance racing across the whole region but there is no vision or commitment to that. Its all about the 'big event' F1, which does little or nothing for regional motorsport.

[bella]

don't you think that f1 needs to establish itself there first as a precursor to any home-grown series though? the labour market required to operate a new local series is an interesting area too - do you pay western teams to come and operate the series with everyone being shadowed with a local?

on another less savoury note there's the societal (is that a word?) attitudes towards cheating too - how do you create a culture where you stick very strictly to the rulebook rather than the prevailing attitude there at the moment?

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bella

don't you think that f1 needs to establish itself there first as a precursor to any home-grown series though? the labour market required to operate a new local series is an interesting area too - do you pay western teams to come and operate the series with everyone being shadowed with a local?

on another less savoury note there's the societal (is that a word?) attitudes towards cheating too - how do you create a culture where you stick very strictly to the rulebook rather than the prevailing attitude there at the moment?

All good questions but in truth I think it is crazy running a F1 GP in a country where there is little or no local motorsport.
I'm one of these people who believe races should be run in countries where there is an historical understanding of what F1 and GP racing is about, and that a GP is an extension of a local motorsport industry.
I also firmly believe in grass roots motorsport being the basis for any real long term presence in the sport so despite Narain K. and Mr Chandhok making it to F1 neither managed to retain a presence there. I am not surprised.
Building national or regional motorsport culture would do far more to promote motorsport understanding, build a following that understood and appreciated the sport then once a year running a F1 event that did nothing for local motorsport development, especially in its 21st century renditions.

Its progressive, but if you were running a national and regional (international Asian)championship you could hire professional guidance and support people to lead train and instruct locals in how to do it and if it was international and supervised the ideas needed to could be conveyed without local culture taking a dominant role.
The problem I have with your concern is that it assumes that the corruption is so deeply embedded in the culture that no one is trustworthy nor is the culture able to be redeemed.
I am always more hopeful than that. Sometimes naïve maybe, but still optimistic about peoples nature and ability to change.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

For the sort of money they pay Bernie/CVC the Asian nations could combine to provide a solid international series that would really crate a regional structure and ladder to provide a pathway that could develop some real talent and national/regional motorsport industry that would enhance racing across the whole region but there is no vision or commitment to that. Its all about the 'big event' F1, which does little or nothing for regional motorsport.

thats an amazing suggestion.

Originally Posted by bella

on another less savoury note there's the societal (is that a word?) attitudes towards cheating too - how do you create a culture where you stick very strictly to the rulebook rather than the prevailing attitude there at the moment?

its ironic really. we are talking about western countries as having a culture which fosters business because they are presumably more fair and less corrupt yet when it comes to sports western athletes represent some of the worst cheaters and for the most part we accept it as the cost of doing business.

edit. from what i read cricket is pretty dirty too so maybe we are all not that different.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

All good questions but in truth I think it is crazy running a F1 GP in a country where there is little or no local motorsport.
I'm one of these people who believe races should be run in countries where there is an historical understanding of what F1 and GP racing is about, and that a GP is an extension of a local motorsport industry.

I also agree that this should be fundamental for a F1 Grand Prix. It just doesn't feel like India has what it takes, in terms of motorsport.

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by Bononi

I also agree that this should be fundamental for a F1 Grand Prix. It just doesn't feel like India has what it takes, in terms of motorsport.

+1. Russia doesn't have much racing, either, except a bit of DTM and WTCC in Moscow now.

[wolfhound]

At least India and Russia both currently have involvement with F1, I do not know of any connections with Korea. Malaysia was a new GP a number of years ago and now appears to be well established with a team largely financed from there and another whose primary sponsor is from there. If CVC/Bernie were serious about trying to develop new races they would not start with $20 million+ hosting fees.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

At least India and Russia both currently have involvement with F1, I do not know of any connections with Korea. Malaysia was a new GP a number of years ago and now appears to be well established with a team largely financed from there and another whose primary sponsor is from there. If CVC/Bernie were serious about trying to develop new races they would not start with $20 million+ hosting fees.

I saw a quote from Bernie that complained about the small amount charged to Canada ($15 million). The average quoted was $27 million so 20 times that is 540 million a year....
And that's just the race fee. It doesn't include advertising ( Bernie/CVC own all the rights) fees etc.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

I saw a quote from Bernie that complained about the small amount charged to Canada ($15 million). The average quoted was $27 million so 20 times that is 540 million a year....
And that's just the race fee. It doesn't include advertising ( Bernie/CVC own all the rights) fees etc.

It is still incomprehensible to me how F1 got itself into this mess.

[nicanary]

Originally Posted by wnut

It is still incomprehensible to me how F1 got itself into this mess.

You and me both. It used to be a sport.

[wolfhound]

More on the subject by Dieter Rencken, where he suspects that Sochi, New Jersey, Korea, India and Austria are either not going to happen or have risk factors attached.
Sochi failed to meet its entry date and can be considered very doubtful.
New Jersey is already well documented with its own thread.
Korea has failed to meet most of its contractual obligations and is on the risk list.
India is off the calender for next year and maybe for longer.
Austria still has to get through planning issues before it can be confirmed.

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...63#post3287863

[bella]

austria is pretty safe, i think. mister red bull will make it right with the local towns, and the non-accomodation means that people there for the race will have to spread themselves relatively well across the region so everyone benefits. planning permission will go through.

if you want to see what the red bull relationship is with the local area, check out the projekt spielberg website, and the facebook page, and anywhere else where the branding they've paid for comes into play.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by wnut

It is still incomprehensible to me how F1 got itself into this mess.

I think it's called greed.