Bernie Ecclestone’s never ending job
Bernie Ecclestone has been on a roll this season as he announces a new grand prix venue almost every week or at least gives lead-weighted hints about it. On the eve of his 80th birthday, he seemed quite eager to leave a legacy of a race in almost every major country. Less is more is not a term bandied around the Ecclestone household.
His current actions are completely at odds with his own-documented statement that the Formula 1 season will not contain more than 20 grand prix. There will be a total of 19 races this season and it has been an unrelenting eight months for the drivers. Next season, thanks to the addition of an Indian Grand prix, Bernie will achieve 20 races.
However, Berne is having a tough time controlling himself and after the enthusiasm of Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop, he has agreed to a US grand prix in 2012 and now a Russian Gran prix in 2014. He has also been gushing about a Roman Grand Prix as soon as 2012. Bernie must be stopped by someone or otherwise, we will be having a 30 race formula 1 season in 2020 or maybe in 2015 if Bernie keeps this pace up.
A US grand prix somehow makes sense financially. There is a massive untapped market in America however; the same cannot be said for a handful of the newer venues. Fewer people expect massive crowds at the remote, new and barely finished track in Korea next weekend. One cannot resist thinking why on earth Bernie even thought of a street race in Rome when we already have a well established grand prix at Monza?
Bernie is hunting for money like wolves hunting for flesh and it seems that there is nothing that can stop him any time soon.
While TV companies would love to see a Formula 1 race pretty much every week, the logistics of hauling huge amounts of equipment around the world, as well as the training time on teams, drivers and yes, even the media are against this decision. However, Bernie will keep hunting for money no matter what so there is no possible solution for this problem.
In the last three years, the Formula 1 season has become a month longer and by next year, it will be extended by another fortnight as it runs to the last weekend of November. It is a saturating point as these developments mean that the sport will cease to remind its workers that their families even exists. The only option left for the FIA is the four week August break that might ease the drivers and teams a bit before they head on to the second half of the season.
Since the last few seasons have been exciting, you only have to go back to the first few seasons of this past decade to remember how boring the sport became after the Schumacher-Ferrari domination. Those seasons used to get on everyone’s nerves and it gets quite frustrating if one even thinks of the same situation in a bloated calendar.
In addition to this, the new tracks are all designed by Hermann Tilke and as a result, the tracks somewhat have a similar feel and the races are bound to get monotonous. One cannot blame Tilke for this, but using the same designer will inevitably lead to a homogenised product. At least in Austin, he hopes to deliver something out of the ordinary and as a result create something unique and exciting. It will be an anticlockwise circuit. Or perhaps the plans were just printed the wrong way round.
If the promised races go ahead, then the tracks that are likely to be affected the most are the established venues mainly in the European Continent. Bernie deals on the back of a massive financial grant from the tracks and this would definitely affect the way Formula 1 has been working since its establishment. The only reason why Bernie is so keen to introduce these new tracks is that the tracks either have huge funding from local or central government while the other tracks are just not throwing enough money at Bernie.
If Bernie is asked with these questions in the media or public, it will always be a one sided battle.
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