Valencia hoping for F1 race fee reduction

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Valencia hopes to reduce the cost of holding its F1 race.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Valencia in talks to cut Formula One costs (Reuters)

“[Valencia regional president Alberto] Fabra was ‘in a process of negotiation to reduce the cost of the Formula One levy’, Serafin Castellano, secretary general of the region’s ruling party, was quoted as saying in local media.”

Petrov Looking at 3 Teams for 2013 Drive – Manager (Ria Novosti)

“I would like something in my hands, something we can put on the table when we don’t have any proper offer from Caterham.”

Hamilton’s dispute with di Resta put before court (The Telegraph)

“The possibility of a court case later this year between [Lewis Hamilton’s] father and one of his on-track rivals, who is now being advised by his team-mate’s manager, will not be appealing. It is thought most likely that both parties will agree to settle before it gets that far.”

Red Bull hits back at critics over rows (Autosport)

Christian Horner: “The bottom line is that the result sheet comes out at the end of qualifying and the end of the race, and the car complies with the regulations. All the rest is all bullshit.”

Hamilton delivers – but ‘wait for judgment day’ (BBC)

“[Lotus’s new rear wing upgrade] is in addition to the DRS overtaking device that all teams use – it’s a kind of DRS-plus – and it will be especially effective at the next two races in Spa and Monza because of the long straights on those tracks.”

Comment of the day

Eleanore on race director Charlie Whiting:

I have to say, the most I took away from this – as bizarre as it was, and confusing for some time until a while after the race when it finally came out what actually caused this – was a reminder of the importance of Charlie Whiting’s job.

He’s always there, but I don’t think most watching tend to give him much thought. It’s his job as much as many others to make sure the drivers have a safe and proper start, and he’s obviously got a good eye up there.

(After all, the guy at the back did wave the green flag to give him the go ahead! Despite that, he still spotted that something was amiss and the start needed to be aborted.)
Eleanore

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On this day in F1

Niki Lauda won the 1977 German Grand Prix – one year on from his dreadful crash at the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

The race was now held at the Hockenheimring. Pole sitter Jody Scheckter finished second ahead of Hans-Joachim Stuck.

The race was also memorable for the antics of Hans Heyer, who started despite not having qualified. Read more about that here:

Here’s footage from the race weekend:

Image © Williams/LAT

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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42 comments on “Valencia hoping for F1 race fee reduction”

  1. Well I’m gratified to see that Gary Andersen agrees with me that Webber was bought in to early in Hungary, not having any one comment the last 3 times I have mentioned this and knowing how successful RBR are I was beginning to think I was committing an awful faux pas that people were to kind to point out to me.
    The question now is if I can see it why do RBR not see it.

    1. @hohum I don’t know why you think Webber’s strategy has been ignored – it was mentioned at length in this article:

      2012 Hungarian Grand Prix lap chart

      And Horner’s explanation why they felt they had to make a third stop was in yesterday’s round-up:

      Hamilton says McLaren need Spa upgrade

      1. My point was that I had commented on this in previous races where Webber had failed to qualify well, most recently GermanGP, and none of the F1fanatics had responded to my comment either positively or negatively .

        1. I’m sure if someone disagreed with you they’d not hesitate to point it out :)

        2. @hohum You only mentioned Hungary in your comment which is why I thought that’s what you were referring to.

          Can you give any details on why you thought Webber’s strategy was wrong in the other races?

          1. @keithcollantine, I have noticed that in every (as I remember it) race where Webber has had a problem in qualifying, he has been called in to the pits early (in relation to the expected life of the tyre) without any obvious or actual advantage gained and having lost any chance of gaining track position when those in front pitted combined with a need to run longer on the second or third set of tyres than the cars in front as the race progressed. I commented on this in the German GP “Alonso resists Vettel……” results and had commented on it sometime before that. I think the strategy is wrong because even Webber can’t be expected to pass a smart, determined driver like MS if his tyres are older than the car he is trying to pass or it is better to be ahead trying to defend than being behind trying to pass.

  2. I’m not sure about that Di Resta/Hamilton story, I guess the article tried to simplify it for plebs like myself but I feel like I’m missing some information about it – particularly why would Hamilton Senior mis-quote rights by 600k and why what is something that could simply be a mistake seen to be cause for sacking your manager?

    If the story is true, Di Restas standing will plummet in my eyes and I suspect in those of others.

    1. Well, if you take Di Resta’s side to be factual, than Hamilton Sr. lied to him in what would appear to be an attempt to pocket more cash.

    2. It seems from the article that DiResta is claiming Anthony Hamilton told him it would cost £1.5 million to buy the sponsor rights from Force India but Force India told DiResta later the actual cost was closer to £1 million, thus the implication that Hamilton intended to pocket the extra £500000.

    3. Anthony might well have been planning to sell those drink rights back on for more than 2 million euros, if he bought them for 2 mill then it would be the managers job to sell them again at an increased price. Since di resta fired him before the deal was concluded we may never know if anthony had good or bad intentions, point being because he was fired before the deal was concluded he has categorically done nothing wrong. (If the facts reported are whole and correct which i doubt they are but we can’t comment on info we don’t have.) Di resta on the other hand terminated a contract possibly unduly and so there might well be a case to be heard in respect to anthony hamiltons loss of earning due to having his contract terminated (possibly unfairly)

      Anthony started this legal action he’s not a fool i think di resta will be on the paying out side of this one.

      It’s also worth noting that since the last driver he was manager to was lewis he could have made an honest mistake in thinking the drink rights were worth more than force india say they are, but i really doubt this is the case.

    4. Anthony might well have been planning to sell those drink rights back on for more than 2 million euros, if he bought them for 2 mill then it would be the managers job to sell them again at an increased price. Since di resta fired him before the deal was concluded we may never know if anthony had good or bad intentions, point being because he was fired before the deal was concluded he has categorically done nothing wrong. (If the facts reported are whole and correct which i doubt they are but we can’t comment on info we don’t have.) Di resta on the other hand terminated a contract possibly unduly and so there might well be a case to be heard in respect to anthony hamiltons loss of earning due to having his contract terminated (possibly unfairly)

      Anthony started this legal action he’s not a fool i think di resta will be on the paying out side of this one.

      It’s also worth noting that since the last driver he was manager to was lewis he could have made an honest mistake in thinking the drink rights were worth more than force india say they are, but i really doubt this is the case.

  3. i’d like to hear more from charlie and his guys, but it seems in the bernie-max-charlie triangle of power whiting is the only one to follow “it’s better to be thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt.”

  4. You can write down Kimi as my favorite for Spa.
    If that DDRS works good and knowing how great Kimi is at Spa, he will be hard to beat imo!

    1. @solidg, any idea on how it is to be activated and more importantly de-activated ?

      1. It seems to be some tubing connected to the rear wing, which works passively when the DRS is activated, stalling the wing much like Mercedes’ system, but reducing drag on the rear wing instead of the front.

  5. Oh wow, thanks Keith! :)

    1. It was a very insightful and creative comment :D

    2. Thanks for writing the comment @leucocrystal!

  6. Some interesting bits about the 1977 German Grand Prix video:
    – full grandstands, even without any German world champions on the grid…
    – at the start procedure, the second-placed driver was still rolling to his start position, and actually beyond it, when they were sent off.
    – a whole string of engine failures, resulting in only 8 finishers; these days we have strategic retirements instead. I’m actually a little confused about the latter. Are you automatically allowed a gearbox change if you don’t finish the race, or do you need to pretend there is a problem with it?

    1. There were German drivers : Stuck, Mass and there was Lauda who was an Austrian

      1. he said world champions, not drivers (though Lauda was a double world champion, but not german, as you point out)

        1. I was saying that, being Austrian, Lauda would have been highly popular in Germany.
          I noticed he said world champions just after I posted,

  7. I wonder where Petrov’s three offers are coming from. Based on Oksana Kossachenko’s comments, we can rule out Caterham and Marussia. And I don’t think HRT or Toro Rosso would be options either; HRT are less competitive than Caterham and Marussia, and Toro Rosso is out because Petrov isn’t a Red Bull driver. I’m guessing Sauber could look at him as a potential replacement for Perez, and Williams might lose patience with Maldonado enough to swap him out for Petrov. I don’t know who else might consider him, though. Maybe Force India?

    1. Won’t be in place of maldonado; Frank Williams loves him, and he brings an enormous amount of money to the team as well.

    2. I think they might be having Marussia as one of those 3 teams they talk to besides Caterham, just they are not likely to go with a team that offers less chance of points than Caterham. And I would think Force India could well use the money from Russia. Talking to either Williams is quite possible as well as Sauber is plausible.
      After all, the message in this press statement is, that Caterham should be happy to take up their option soon (before Autumn) or their Russian driver might look elsewhere.

      1. @bascb – I can kind of see where you’re coming from, but if that’s true, Oksana Kossachenko isn’t very good at her job. The point of talking to three teams is to get Caterham to realise that they need to offer Petrov something soon, because he’ll start looking elsewhere. But Kossachenko says that it’s unlikely Petrov will race for Marussia come the Russian Grand Prix, so if Marussia is indeed one of the teams Petrov is looking at, she’s effectively cut him off from them.

        1. But that still leaves the other 2 they are talking to

  8. Considering FOM have pretty much halved their fee already for Valencia, by virtue of halving the amount of races, I don’t see how they could get hold of a reduction.

    1. The phrase “take a hike…” springs to mind… Valencia could always default so we could have a better track instead… I know this year’s race was good but that’s been the only one and everyone agrees it hasn’t lived up to expectations.

  9. Poor poor show Keith. On the home page you’ve written “Di Resta taking ex-manager Hamilton to court”.. when it’s the other way round.

    1. @timi I’ve swapped the names the right way around.

      1. @keithcollantine Good stuff. But now it says “Hamilton taking ex-manager Di-Rest to court” haha

        1. I didn’t think that one through! Let’s just start from scratch…

  10. What a lovable character Anthony Hamilton is. Maybe he should become Maldonado’s manager.

    1. When your son sacks you, maybe that is not a recommendation.

      But then I don’t know the facts of his case. It’s generally career suicide for any type of fiduciary to sue his principal, so this suggests that Hamilton has an open and shut case.

  11. Valencia is getting a fee reduction alright. A reduction to zero since they won’t be in the calendar next year.

    1. Exactly what I was thinking

  12. That headline is very misleading. It seems as though Hamilton Sr. is taking de Resta to court.

  13. Confusing situation there with Hamilton Sr and Di-Resta. So the way I’m reading it, Hamilton advised Di-Resta that he should buy these licensing rights from Force India, and told him that he’d need to pay 1.5m for it. Then things went quiet, so Di-Resta asked the team about it, and they said that the value of the deal was actually less than 1m, meaning that Hamilton was advising him to pay over 500,000 more than he should have done. The debate obviously being twofold then:

    1 – why did Hamilton advise Di-Resta that the cost was 50% more than it was
    2 – Why did things go quiet and the deal not proceed as planned.

    We can only speculate, but clearly Di-Resta felt that Hamilton was not acting in his interests and decided to fire him. Hamilton is saying he wasn’t doing anything wrong (though we don’t know his defense at the moment), and so he was fired unfairly and Di-Resta is liable for loss of earnings.

    Interesting stuff, and if it’s settled out of court, we’ll never actually learn the truth. Which is a little bit unsatisfactory.

  14. Hoping Bernie will get a heart? That’s like hoping the Tory party will. Fool’s errand but I hope it works. Valencia isn’t a great track and it doesn’t have a reputation for great races either but it’s forked out heaps of money to be in F1 and has only been in here for a few years so it’ll be cruel not to give them a break.

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