F1 prepared to move away from Europe: Mosley

[bahraini spirit]

hi, found this interesting article, check it out:


Formula One could move away from Europe because of red-tape wranglings threatening the sport, FIA president Max Mosley said on Monday.

Mosley told reporters it was ''very possible'' the sport could move outside of the European Union and into a new home elsewhere in the world with the Gulf States or the Far East potential destinations.

Mosley said that EU regulations governing the 35-hour week, anti-tobacco advertising and sponsorship and the new threat of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) had been a body blow to Formula One.

He did not name any particular country that the Formula One industry are considering a move to, but said: ''We have 120 member associations so there is plenty of choice.

''There are some very interesting countries that could prove attractive.''

Mosley said the present British government has shown serious interest in keeping the Formula One business in the country but warned that their efforts may not be enough.

''The whole industry could decamp the way things are going,'' said Mosley.

Seven of the 10 Formula One teams are based in England, while Italy, Germany and Switzerland is home to the other three outfits on the grid.

The world's richest and most glamorous sport could be seduced into a new home by Arab cash with the Bahrain gulf state a potential destination.

Bahrain will host a round of the Formula One world championship for the first time on April 4 this year.

Five of Formula One's 10 teams run with tobacco sponsorship but have been blocked from carrying logos at some European races where cigarette advertising is banned.

The most serious threat has come from the EAW, with regulations holding team principals responsible if drivers are killed during Grands Prix in Europe.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has already signalled his intent to move the sport away from Europe with Austria dropped from the calendar after 2003 and the San Marino Grand Prix being held at Imola for the final time this season.

China and Bahrain will host Grands Prix for the first time this year, while Turkey will replace Imola in next year's championship.

India and Korea have also signed deals to join the calendar before the end of the decade.

[JAG]

F1, please leave Europe.. You will not be missed.

Don't belive the spin. Its all driven by money.

[Adam43]

Welcome to ten-tenths bahraini spirit

please could you provide a link to the article please.

BAR's David Richards warned against a similar thing due to the Tobacco aspect of what is mentioned above. See this thread: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=49584

[Super Tourer]

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns12453.html

Here is a link to a story on the subject. Also offers the suggestion that Dubai, is offering F1 teams an attractive 'bolthole'...

"There have been suggestions in recent days that Ecclestone has already had talks with the authorities in Dubai, which is believed to be willing to make generous incentives to the teams and offer tax concessions to their personnel.

"There is a country with land and opportunities offering the teams to decamp," Mosley said."

[GP Racer]

Originally posted by JAG
F1, please leave Europe.. You will not be missed.

Don't belive the spin. Its all driven by money.

If Max and Bernie keep threatening to take F1 out of Europe, then we will start hearing many more voices like JAG's in the near future.

You can only cry wolf so many times, before people say, enough, leave already!

[Wethat]

F1 won't leave Europe simple as that. Max Mosley and Bernie are threatening blabla..doesn't sound like news to me ..Like F1 can go elswhere and be successfull or something..NOT.

[climb]

I think that the teams will have to make their voices heard, loud and proud!
If the teams (and the huge corporations behind most of them) wil be contrary, what can Max and Bernie do?
Less than nothing!

[JAG]

Originally posted by GP Racer
If Max and Bernie keep threatening to take F1 out of Europe, then we will start hearing many more voices like JAG's in the near future.

You can only cry wolf so many times, before people say, enough, leave already!

Although never a huge F1 fan, I did get up at 3am in the morning to watch qualifying etc. from Australia, Japan and the like.

Not any more.

Forget the quality of the racing, its the attitude of the F1 establishment that gets to me.

In this day and age there are a lot of attractive new series coming up, such as the LMES, DTM, FIA GT, ETCC, WRC etc.

F1 is not the be all and end all. Even the manufactuers are begining to realise this.

Speaking to armchair F1 fans, I can tell you that many of them are now firmly Ex-F1 fans.

[GP Racer]

Originally posted by climb
I think that the teams will have to make their voices heard, loud and proud!
If the teams (and the huge corporations behind most of them) wil be contrary, what can Max and Bernie do?
Less than nothing!

Thats the part that gets me, why would a company like Ferrari want to go to the third world, where they can't sell there products? Does HP sell more computers in the Far East than here? Does Vodaphone do more business in Bahrain, than in Italy?

Whats the payoff for these companies, who spend a tremendous(to put it mildly!)amount of money on F1, to go to these countries? Why are they so quiet? :confused:

[JimW]

Originally posted by JAG
F1, please leave Europe.. You will not be missed.

Don't belive the spin. Its all driven by money.

My thoughts exactly. If they could leave the stage entirely, so much the better for motor SPORT.

From their point of view it does not matter a bit where the races are since this is a TV production. The physical spectators don't matter to F1, only to the circuit organisers and not much then in some cases. (I am speaking financially, of course. I would not dream of suggesting that any circuit owner had anything but the best interests of spectators at heart. )

Ferrari don't sell cars in England (never mind the UK) because a few people go to Silverstone for the race. If their road car sales have anything to do with F1 it is through the brand promotion which 17/18 races generate from TV.

Regards

Jim

[climb]

OK, but we cannot forget the economic impact of a F1 Gp; the total return on the sorrounding area may be strong.
Just to make an example, Imola is a small town, losing the GP will certainly cause an impact in term of people working around the circuit (hotels, catering, goodies, travels etc.) in preparation of the race and during the GP.

[KC]

Welcome to the wonderful world of major world sports. Its a great place to be... where the most loyal of fans are priced out of the market; the principals hold the league or series hostage to extort more concessions for better arenas, more private seating licenses and more money from the local economy; the players or stars are inaccessible to the fans that remain; and the rules get manipulated to obtain a desired outcome.

Ask any National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association or National Hockey League fan if they have ever experienced or heard of any of this before.

[GP Racer]

Originally posted by KC
Welcome to the wonderful world of major world sports. Its a great place to be... where the most loyal of fans are priced out of the market; the principals hold the league or series hostage to extort more concessions for better arenas, more private seating licenses and more money from the local economy; the players or stars are inaccessible to the fans that remain; and the rules get manipulated to obtain a desired outcome.

Ask any National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association or National Hockey League fan if they have ever experienced or heard of any of this before.

Spoken like a true, dispirited, dejected, fed-up, American sports fan!

I totally relate with you KC!

[KC]

Amen, brother GP racer!

[jetsetter]

Will the crowds turn up in India or Bahrain? What sort of motorsport infrastructure do they have in these countries? Are they capable of holding big events? These are some of the questions that Max & Bernie must ask themselves before they give Europe up to go to the great unknown, personally i can never see it happening but in F1 money talks so i would never underestimate anything that pair do.

[Bridget Stone]

Just a question : When all the "new" countries like China and Bahrain spend so much money on building a formula-1 track, do they only use it for this one f-1 race a year ?? Or do they also use it for staging other race-events, like Motor Grandprix or other race-classes ? If not, i dont understand why so much money is spoilt in countries where the population in general is poor and needy.

love, bridget

[bahraini spirit]

thanks for the reception. well for whomever talked about racing infrastructure, both bahrain and china are building circuits, $150 million and $200 million respectively. well bahrain has a lot of other events besides f1 planned. i mean if u only utilise it for an f1 race (once a year) then its not worth the initial investment really. drag racing and other similar sports are popular here in bahrain. i have no idea bout china though.

[expert]

Hello,

Whilst I do not have te intention of upsetting anybody or turn this discussion into a political one, I would like to mention a quote of Bernie that confirmed thoughts that I've had since a couple (2-3) of years.

Bernie says in this interview with "Autosport" http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.asp?id=25899&s=5 : “In the next ten years Europe will descend to the economic level of the third world. It has no hope of competing with South Korea, India and China.”

I'm afraid he is right. As a Belgian I was fed up with my own government squeezing every penny I had out of me and my company... so I moved it to Luxembourg last year and maybe in a couple of years I'll have to move it again to maybe Andorra, maybe another business/fiscal friendly environment on another continent...

You may say: 'has this anything to do with this discussion or with formula 1'? well, yes, because F1-teams are businesses like all the others... (as a matter of fact, like you all know: it's huge-multi-million-dollar-business) so they will eventually make the moves that other company's do... to e.g. China.

Since F1 is broadcoasted all over the world they will also be able to keep hold of e.g. Vodaphone... hell, how long will it take, you think, before Voda starts running business in China (maybe they already do so) and eventually Ferrari WILL start selling plenty of cars to Chinese Millionairs (as there will be plenty of those pretty soon!).

My point is: don't think Max, Bernie and Richard are joking about leaving Europe: they are really serious, that's what I believe anyway... They will have to with the corrupt politicians that are dictating the EU.

Sorry if this sounds negative or is unacceptable to say on this forum.

Regards

[KC]

Formula 1 itself has not cared about the gate for the last decade. That money usually goes to the race promoter. Bernie and F1 all get paid up front. If China and Bahrain come up with the cash, then why should Bernie give a rip about whether there are fans or not. As far as many would be concerned, it would cheper to do without all the fans. No traffic, no security issues, no concessionaires, and no trouble dealing with a 100,000+ plus crowd of people.

The only thing that Bernie and company respect is money. Not tradition, not the racing, and sure not the fans. The fans are a necessary evil to it all. If he can effectively do away with the fans and still get his money, I am sure he would jump at it.

If you still tune in and watch and the sponsors all feel that they are getting the return from the money they expect, then it will continue. As soon as fans stop watchiing and ratings fall and sponsors decide that its much more cost effective to be on the side of a BTCC or DTM or FIA GT instead of an F1, then Bernie will change his stance.

[GP Racer]

Drag racing is popular in Bahrain, who would have thought it?!

[bahraini spirit]

ya its popular, we had an area in the desert which we called the "Runway" (now taken by the bahrain defence force) and the drag racing apparently will be done in the circuit. ill try to get more info bout this stuff in bahrain.

[Kicking-back]

All this talk of leaving Europe is posturing so the FIA can negotiate various concessions from the EU and member governments.

We won't see a mass cull of European races and I don't really believe the teams will be moving their factory to Dubai!

[kickstart]

If F1 went east maybe we would get some quality racing back in europe, like F1 pre- Bernie. Remember real overtaking, racing drivers you could speak to in the paddock, privateer teams that could slug it out with the big boys.

[bahraini spirit]

this is an article i found of upcoming events:

Radical SR3 sportscar to feature in Bahrain-based pan-Gulf Race Series London 21st January 2004, The Bahrain International Circuit, in association with the Bahrain Motor Federation announced plans today to develop a one-make regional race series to be operated by Bahrain-based Radical Sportscar distributor, GulfSport.

Marking the first phase of Bahrain’s local motorsport infrastructure development plan, this will enable local enthusiasts to own, test and race a modern two-seater racing car, whilst taking advantage of a structured driver training and development programme at the Bahrain International Circuit. The ‚Gulf Radical Championship’ is expected to attract some 30 competitors, from Bahrain and neighbouring GCC countries, whose cars will be stored and race prepared at the Sakhir Circuit, and will be supported by GulfSport’s race engineers and mechanics on testing and race days.

The 252bhp Radical SR3 sets new standards of safety, yet is the world’s fastest one-make sports racing car, and has been breaking lap records around the world. In Germany, a road legal Radical SR3 recently knocked 12.8 seconds off the 14- mile Nurburgring‚ Nordschliefe’ circuit record. With a 6-speed sequential gearbox, slick racing tyres and full aerodynamic package, the Radical SR3 uniquely offers near Formula 3 lap times in a two-seater sports car. The Radical championships attract a wide range of drivers from the keen amateur and aspiring youngster, to seasoned professionals such as ex-F1 driver Martin Donnelly, and the seven times Le Mans racer, Marc Goossens.

With exclusive Radical test sessions and driver development, GulfSport’s Radical SR3 customers will have no shortage of track time to hone their skills. GulfSport is expecting to attract significant media interest and race sponsorship to both help promote the Championship and make a financial contribution to competitor racing costs.

[Adam43]

Again, bahraini spirit, could you post a reference, link or cite the source of your articles please. Copyright and all that!

The article seems a little off topic (and nothing to do with F1)! Is it to point out that Bahrain are trying to encourage more motorsport by having a radical championship?