F1 will race in Azerbaijan in 2016: Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that a Grand Prix in Baku, capital of the oil-rich country of Azerbaijan, will be added to the Formula One calendar in 2016 whilst a race in New Jersey will not take up its slot next year.

“Baku is for 2016,” he told Forbes. It addresses concerns that the F1 calendar could exceed its limit of 20 races next year as a result of the recent addition of the Mexican Grand Prix.

On Tuesday Forbes broke the news that Mr Ecclestone has confirmed a race in Mexico will join the F1 calendar in 2015 giving it a total of 20 races. Baku was also expected to be added in 2015 and would push the calendar to a record 21 races which would require consent from F1’s leading teams.

The more races that are added to the calendar, the more time team staff need to spend away from home and the higher their costs become. This is a particular problem if there are more long-haul races since eight of the eleven teams are based in the UK. To prevent them from being put under further pressure, the top three outfits – Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing – have put a limit on the number of races in each season. This is written into their commercial agreements with F1 and it requires majority consent from them if there are more than 20 races on the calendar.

As Baku was originally expected to take place in 2015 the delay gives more time for the calendar to be expanded or for Mr Ecclestone to decide which race to drop to make way for the new addition.

A likely candidate would be one of the European events as their annual fees tend to be the lowest. Governments of emerging markets bankroll the costs of F1 as they use the races to drive tourism and put their nations on the global sporting map alongside countries such as England, Monaco and the United States.

In contrast, traditional European nations already get a significant amount of tourism so don’t need to rely on F1 as much. It means that European governments are less inclined to cover the costs of F1 so can not afford to pay as much as their counterparts in emerging markets.

Azerbaijan isn’t the only country which could tip the calendar beyond 20 races. Another Grand Prix in the United States is vying to get the green light. Known as the Grand Prix of America, it is planned to run on 3.2-miles of public roads in Port Imperial, a district in the New Jersey towns of West New York and Weehawken. It snakes alongside the Hudson river and would give the Grand Prix a spectacular backdrop of Manhattan’s historic skyline.

Even though the Grand Prix has never even taken place its history has had more twists and turns than most other races. It was due to début in 2013 but in September the year before Mr Ecclestone told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that the organisers “have not complied with the terms and conditions of the contract which is now gone anyway. “They don’t have a contract.”

The Grand Prix of America organisers are led by Leo Hindery junior, a sometime racer and managing partner of private equity fund InterMedia Partners. In May 2013 the F1 website Pitpass revealed that there had been an exodus of management from the race team including the chief financial officer and the chief marketing officer.

Then in June last year Britain’s Daily Telegraph uncovered the scale of the problem when it reported that the investment bank UBS had been appointed by the race organisers to raise $100 million which is required for it to go ahead. The money was still missing by August last year when Mr Ecclestone revealed to CNN that the race “is not on the cards for next year.” He added that the problem is the organisers “haven’t got any money.”

The Grand Prix of America is the only proposed event in the 64-year history of F1 to be dropped from the calendar twice and although it has a slot tentatively scheduled for 2015 Mr Ecclestone told Forbes it will not be taking it up.

“Somebody said to me the other day that New Jersey seem to have got their act together now and that they have got the money and are all in good shape. Whether or not that is true I don’t know. The soonest it could come on the calendar is 2016.”

(Forbes)

Bakudaily.az