Until the race is officially cancelled, I still think this could be gamesmanship.

 

Well, hopefully NJ can get their act together and give us at least one race in the near future.

This Austin race isn't looking good at all, but there are still about 3 weeks left before a final decision is made.

 

 

what a clusterfvck this whole thing has been...really upsets me to see this mess happen...

 

Option 1: Bernie being a twat "because he can".

Option 2: Bernie being a twat because USGP hasn't been in the news for a while.

Option 3: Developers are really that stupid and/or someone is now living the good life in an unnamed country with a bunch of their money.

I'm split between 1 and 2. Nobody buys that much land and commits that many resources without being able to secure a LoC.

 

Is this really all b/c Bernie is a ****? How much $ has been commited and spent already??!

Dana what's your take on this?

 

I thought we had another thread on this.

Didn't Bernie dangle Austin out there like a carrot so he could entice NY into hosting the following year?

Bernie is an ass.
Who wants to race in Texas anyway

https://teamspeed.com/forums/pit-sto...act-issue.html

 

Twitter / Andrew Horansky: F1 lot continues to thin, ...

Packing up and moving on already is not a good sign...

 

As an F1 fan who loves to attend the races live, I really wanted the Austin race to happen. But it never felt real to me.

From the day they announced it I just didn't trust that they could pull it off.

I never really looked into attending the race and even bought my tickets for the Canadian Grand Prix again - knowing that I likely did not have the time or energy to attend two Grands Prix in a 6 month period.

I believe that Austin was always Bernie's backup race for the United States and that he never intended on giving it real, top billing.

Remember back when Bernie missed the first race of the year in Australia in order to meet with New Jersey officials about staging a race there? This was a big indication about how important that race was to him and how insignificant Austin was.

There are just so many positives about a race on the East Coast that you don't get in Austin.

The New Jersey race can be held back-to-back with Montreal. The weather will be perfect. It is a street circuit so there is basically no setup time. And you are dealing with folks who really know how to host big sporting events.

I saw none of the above benefits in Austin. It just never made sense to me.

Once the deal for the New Jersey race was done, Bernie stopped playing soft and giving breaks. He took off the kid-gloves and saw to it that the prospects of succeeding in Austin faded.

The only real mystery now is why Tavo Hellmud seems to have lost his will to fight over the race. It must be financial. It may also be all of that whining by the local Austin government. That was enough to make any man run screaming for the hills.

Any way you look at it, this is another major disappointment and embarrassment for F1 in the United States. I think Bernie likes that. He loves to thumb his nose at "the Americans" as he calls us. He giggles when we fail. It is too bad that Austin has given him another reason to do so.

That's my take.

 

I have no doubt that Bernie is just doing his thing and maximising his bottom line,it is almost monthly that a new place is announcing their intentions for a GP or some great old track is trying to renegotiate their contract.. If New Jersey get ups I doubt it will run for much of the 10 year contract and the people in charge will be looking to get out/negotiate and the F1 circus will just move on to the next location willing to pay the $25-50 million race fee (depends on who you are) and spend another $200 building a new tilkedrome.. The promoters never make money and always need government subsidies to make ends meat because Bernie has all the cash cows stitched up with the TV rights, trackside advertising, corporate hospitality etc and the promoter gets the crumbs from gate takings basically..

I remember reading a while back that Tavo was moving on as he had done what was needed for Austin and they can finish it off while he was going on to use his "connection with Bernie" to get races up in Mexico, South Africa and Argentina.. At the time I thought that was a bit strange and now it all makes sense.