Ace F1 reporter Adam Cooper did the interview with Ecclestone and asked all the right questions. Read it and I think you will agree that the U.S. GP at Austin, scheduled for 2012, will likely never be held.
The deadline is tomorrow, Nov. 30, and it will pass without a resolution. What a wasted effort.
You can do your own reading between the lines, but I suggest this is what happened to create this embarrassment.
A promoter made the deal with F1 (Ecclestone) and the state of Texas and became partners with local interests, who would raise money to build a circuit.
The local interests and the promoter then had some sort of disagreement, or falling out. The promoter bailed. The state of Texas, which was on the hook for $25 million, very quickly got cold feet.
The local interests decided to try to go it alone, even though the state and Ecclestone had only dealt with the promoter. So Ecclestone sent them a contract.
Not only did the local interests not sign the contract, which would have left them up the creek without a paddle, but they tried to bluff their way through by sending a contract of theirs for Ecclestone to sign (knowing full well he wouldn’t, thus letting them off the hook because of the realization they were in way over their heads).
The Austin Grand Prix seemed like such a good idea at the time.
If the Grand Prix now scheduled for New Jersey/New York in 2013 falls through (it's also quite possible), the United States may never get another crack at an F1 race - at least so long as Bernie Ecclestone is around.
Here's that link. Read it and weep.
Exclusive: Bernie Ecclestone speaks to Autoweek about Austin Grand Prix
Bernie used Austin to get the NJ people to send him money and get a US race on an undesirable STREET COURSE on the calendar. Now that he has it he has no interest in being cooperative with Austin. He's always been a crook and this is no different. The Austin promoters have the funds but now he is putting all sorts of other unrealistic conditions on making the race happen. Bernie has his money, his US race, and he could care less that the investors in Austin just got sold downstream.
Believing what Bernie says without doing further investigation is kind of like expecting medicine from a snake oil salesman to do what the salesman claims.
Posted by: Ted | 11/29/2011 at 08:57 AM
That's a damn good summary and accurate, at least from the outside looking in.
"The local interests and the promoter then had some sort of disagreement, or falling out. The promoter bailed. The state of Texas, which was on the hook for $25 million, very quickly got cold feet."
Your time sequencing is wrong.
It should read:
The State of Texas (Comptroller Combs) got cold feet. This was first apparent on July 31, 2011, the original date Texas had promised to send the $25MM sanctioning fee to Formula One's Dr. Drevil, Bernie Ecclestone.
This caused problems among the promoter, Tavo Hellmund, and track investors, including the Texas billionaire, Red McCombs.
The problem was the finger pointing. The finger pointing was the question, "So who is going to replace the State of Texas?"
"Who's got a quarter of a billion dollars [the are willing to spend to finish the track]?
Silence.
Divorces never go well and they never happen overnight.
The conjugal partnership bed, here in Austin, the one the promoters and the investors had been joyously occupying together, well, it has been empty since, oh, some time in August. It just wasn't fun anymore with out the $25MM worth of sex toys provided by the Comptroller.
Some people are just late to the news. In this case, almost everyone.
Posted by: Elroy Leroy | 11/29/2011 at 10:24 AM