F1 doesn’t have to have Italian GP – Ecclestone

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In the round-up: Bernie Ecclestone denies the Italian Grand Prix is essential to Formula One as the race still lacks a contract beyond the end of this season.

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Keith Collantine
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125 comments on “F1 doesn’t have to have Italian GP – Ecclestone”

  1. *Facepalm* … for GOD’S SAKE Bernie !!!

    1. Don’t worry, nature will take its course soon enough, its just a bitter old man not caring if he ruins the sport for everyone as his family will still have wealth when he passes and at this stage of life its probably all he cares about (if indeed he even cares about this). He will continue to do this as long as he is in a position to, & honestly when I see him playing his ‘confused, soul with cryptic responses’ act to the cameras I just feel like pushing him over (with my pinkie lol), watching him stumble and totter etc and then just saying ‘what are you CONFUSED as to why I might do that as a genuine fan of F1 Bernie’?.

      1. He will live for another 20 years, don’t you worry.

        1. Sergey Martyn
          28th March 2016, 9:21

          kpcart He will live for another 20 years, don’t you worry.
          ——————————————————————-
          Oh thank you! I was thinking that he’s a vampire and will live forever.
          Anyone need wooden stakes?

        2. I very much doubt that BCE will live another ten years, but in that time
          he can do a great deal more damage to F1. In any case we all know
          his unpleasant terminology isn’t aimed at the wider audience, it’s aimed at
          local authority in whatever country an F1 racetrack is situated and is
          intended to scare them into paying whatever massively overpriced rate
          CVC Capital Partners believe they can squeeze out of them for the next
          twenty years. I believe its called blackmail. It’s used against every top-class
          F1 venue owners in Europe and the US.

          It’s high time somebody put the skids under this one-man disaster area
          and parked him on a large sandbank where the tides are very strong.
          And going for a swim would be suicidal.

          To make the point: F1 needs ALL the classic European race events as
          they are part of the heritage of F1 that Ecclestone and CVC don’t give
          a damn about.

          1. Blackmail is the word that comes to my mind when I think of sky tv. It doesn’t work Bernie and Rupert – if f1 loses viewers it’s your fault. We won’t be blackmailed!

      2. Bernie is an idiot but stop blaming him. If he dies tomorrow another guy from CVC will do the same because their goal is to make MONEY. They don’t care about anything else, that is their goal.

        Stop watching a sport that does not care about what fans want. If people stop watching, only then will things change.

        1. Finally, someone who see’s through it.

          Bernie is simply a figure-head these days, offered up by CVC for the fans to turn their guns on. The real guilty parties are Donald McKenzie and the CVC shareholders. They’re the ones directing traffic. They’re a hedge fund and they exist solely to make money for themselves.

          Of course, Bernie isn’t whiter than white in all this, but for all intents and purposes, he’s just they’re stoolie.

          You could get rid of Ecclestone, but that doesn’t solve the root of the problem. CVC would just replace him with someone else. Getting rid of CVC, that solves the problem.

          F1 needs a group who is prepared to invest money IN the sport, not just keep withdrawing money OUT, then Bernie wouldn’t have to go around the sport, effectively holding the sport to ransom, at CVC’s behest.

          1. Too true. Unfortunately this is the only true exit strategy from this stalemate. Even then the next owner would need to be a caretaker/benefactor for F1, not another financial parasite.

      3. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        28th March 2016, 9:19

        If he shows his face at Monza or Silverstone, I’m sure someone will “take care” of him…

    2. Tifosi must be waiting for him this year…

    3. “I don’t think we have to have an Italian Grand Prix. Somebody once told me a funny thing that you couldn’t have Formula 1 without a race in France. But we do.”

      What F1 doesn’t need is more crap races, on crap tracks with next to no fans simply because they are the highest bidders. Fair enough F1 can survive without the French or Italian grand prixs, but replacing them with yawn-fest grand prixs is a not going to help F1 in the long term.

      I wonder how long it will be before they try to replace the Silverstone Grand Prix with the North Korean Grand Prix

      1. The ultra prestigous Grand Prix of the Democratic Republic of Korea- held in the outskirts of Camp 22- the world’s most notorious forced labor camp. The drivers will race on a glorious circuit that goes in and out of the facility itself, twisting through areas with piles of dead bodies galore and people being worked to death. And every competing car will have an explosive device in it that allows Kim Jong-un to blow up any driver who does something he doesn’t like, whatever that action may be. Apparently, he will be paying CVC and Ecclestone the sum of $2 billion to host a GP there every year. I’ve heard that they’ve already named some corners- such as the Who needs tradition corner, Genocide corner, Money is all that matters corner, and Oh my God my engineer has been convicted of crimes against the state for saying “this place smells bad” corner. And the winner gets to go in the cockpit of his private plane, and Kim Jong-un gets to sit on the driver’s lap and pretend to fly the plane while a barely-trained pilot is doing the actual flying next to them.

        I CAN’T WAIT!

        1. Kim Il-sung & Kim Jong-il International Circuit..(like Imola & Mexico)

          1. Korean Holocaust International Circuit of Kim Il-sung

    4. F1 returning to Las Vegas surfaced again in that article of which Ecclestone mentioned F1 doesn’t need the Italian Grand Prix. This is coming from an American from Los Angeles, who has been to Vegas many times- a race in Vegas during the daytime is an atrocious idea. Vegas feels like a lifeless graveyard during the day. But during the night time there- now that may be an interesting idea- but quite honestly- a bunch of snobby, pretentious Europeans with fine tastes will really not mix well with a tacky, extremely pretentious place that I will admit has many fine restaurants and is actually not bad for big events in terms of the visual TV show only unless it is held at night- but no F1 paddock regular will want to go back to Vegas. If F1 could be in Los Angeles again- that would be great. But not Vegas. Please, not there again.

  2. What the hell… That’s a shame that we don’t have a race in France and we mustn’t lose Italy.
    Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain – they all contributed the most to the european racing we see now with their drivers, tracks and manufacturers. F1 just MUST have races there. We lost France, Italy and Germany are on the brink. What’s next? Silverstone? Monaco? Spa?

    1. RaceProUK (@)
      28th March 2016, 1:26

      I’m likely paraphrasing, but anyway:
      “If you don’t race where the history is, then you don’t have any history.”
      – Jeremy Clarkson (seriously!)

      1. Even an outrageous bigot like Clarkson sometimes
        hits the nail very squarely on the head !

    2. Bernie is not good. Why can’t they fire him? Why?

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        28th March 2016, 8:32

        He either pays his friends and/or knows about their dirty laundry. @jcost

        And some are so starstruck that they voluntarily dance to his tunes. Yes Todt, I’m talking about you!!

    3. @albedo

      That’s a shame that we don’t have a race in France

      Though it’s interesting to note that fact hasn’t stopped Renault coming back as a full team. Wonder if their return will prompt someone to try to put one on?

    4. I could very much do without Monaco. The only things going for that circuit are tradition and glamour. I don’t believe in tradition for the sake of tradition, and I don’t care for glamour. It’s a dull circuit with zero overtaking.

      1. Just one of the great historic race tracks ever! regardless of overtaking or not. Driving a F1 car through those streets is a sight to behold

        1. To each his own, I suppose. To me, it’s the worst circuit of the year, reliably producing boring races year after year.

  3. …and nor does it have to have Ecclestone.

    1. +1.

      Somebody should tell him that.

    2. This ! +1

      1. Dzi (@dzaci214sid)
        28th March 2016, 0:40

        Probably everybody’s thoughts. +1

    3. Beat me to it Max @vettel1 .

      1. +1 Exactly

    4. ColdFly F1 (@)
      28th March 2016, 8:32

      +1

    5. Sergey Martyn
      28th March 2016, 9:10

      +100500 Exactly what I was going to say. Somebody please kick that demented clown out of F1 circus!

    6. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
      28th March 2016, 9:23

      @vettel1 Someone give Max a cigar!

      ULTIMATE FORMULA FOR REJUVENATING F1:

      More parity.
      More mechanical grip.
      Less celebrity culture.
      Less aero.
      Less Bernie.

      1. Totally agree @william-brierty: purer racing is the means to improving the sport, not corrupt money from nations with little racing heritage funding moany trolls.

    7. Shortest COTD there! +1

    8. (@vettel1)
      One of the shortest comments ever…..and one of the best!

    9. A bit taken aback by the reaction to my comment!

    10. +1
      Best comment Ever

    11. I know it has been “+1’ed” a lot, but I just had to add mine to the list. Excellent comment, & one I agree with wholeheartedly.

  4. Wish I could say F1 doesn’t have to have Bernie, but the harsh reality is known to all. Honestly, I’m quite young to have witnessed French GP, also late to follow F1, but if fans wanted it, it should’ve been exciting then.

    1. @srikanth Are you 7? I started watching F1 at really young age as well. Bernie sold F1 but still gets to plan the calendar and care to the promoters. I’m all for capitalism if Monza wants it, then pay as much as anyone else does. The people that say Monza should be in are the same that want top european football clubs to have permanent entries on the CL

      1. @peartree I was 16 when I watched my first F1 race (monaco gp) and i’ll be 18 in two months. My english was crap at 7. Back to point, if Monza produced great races, then I don’t think it should be taken off. The whole ‘show’ would look great. I really wonder why it is atop thin ice just because of monetary issues. If there are new tracks coming atleast once a year now, why ditch these tracks which promote the ‘show’ these people claim to search for?

        1. @srikanth Magny Cours (The French GP track) was one of the most boring, if not the most boring on the calendar. Since it was so narrow and didn’t have particularly long straights, it was a complete borefest. It’s more of sentiment and atmosphere than anything else. I mean, when was the last time Monza produced an 8/10 or 9/10 race? 2010 was OK, 2008 had the wet conditions, but mostly, it has not really been exciting at all as a race track.

          1. @mashiat, I do have to agree that the calls for a French GP seem to be driven by the sentiment that there should be a race in France irrespective of the quality of the race itself.

            If you look back to the race reviews and comments at the time, nobody really liked Magny Cours – the teams hated it because it has always been a logistical nightmare to get to the circuit, the drivers weren’t particularly fond of the circuit due to the difficulty in following another car and the fans complained about the dull and predictable races that tended to occur there. About the only other permanent venue that could be used for F1 would be Paul Ricard, but that circuit has virtually no facilities for the public and a negligible capacity (around 10,000 people), so it’s currently not really viable as a venue.

        2. @srikanth “show”? what happened to the “sport”. What you are saying makes total sense if F1 was just a show, but F1 is not meant to be a show, it’s meant to be a competition and it happens to be something worth showing. What is F1 in actuality, I have no idea, maybe you are right in calling it a show. What I like about Monza is the fact there’s no track like it, Baku will superseed Monza on speed but I’m not sure cars are running low profile wings there. Everyone loves small wings. No fan can remember not having a race at Monza. Honestly I can remember not having Spa and that’s not as historic but lot more painful to me, what a beauty of a place and wonderful track, can’t say the same for Monza.

      2. @peartree Watching F1 since a young age and being young are two completely differenet things (unless they overlap)

        1. @mashiat I implied that he had said he was too young to have seen a french gp… Which he said. I assumed wrong, as I should’ve assumed that “I’m far too young to have seen Bowie live because I simply didn’t knew about him before the news broke on my smartphone”.

      3. That’s a false comparison. It’s far closer to suggest that the Champions league shouldn’t be played in European grounds anymore, and should be played in Qatar and Shanghai.

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          28th March 2016, 8:38

          and no CL football on FTA; no videos on the internet; a third or revenue to some investors; footballers not allowed to dye their hair; rules changed during half time; teams not shown on TV when the big boss wants to punish them; 1 player taken off the field every 90seconds; etc. etc.

        2. Mr Ed @jcost since when did F1 stopped being a world championship?

  5. F1 doesn’t have to have anything, Bernard Charles Ecclestone. And if you carry on as you are doing, it won’t have anything.

    1. Brilliant my friend….absolutely brilliant !

    2. Duncan Snowden
      28th March 2016, 13:28

      Bingo. Well said.

    3. Here here.

      1. *hear hear

  6. He’s simply saying that F1 doesn’t want to to give preferential treatment to Italian motorsp… Er…

  7. Oh man.. Teh news today..

    FOM is suppose to promote F1? What exactly are they doing? Da hell basicly.

    Head honcho insinuates and blackmails Italy trying to strip them of Monza race… What is next.. I remember his similar words about Silverstone. I greatly dislike this way of working with F1 partners…

    And he does it allover the place… F1 does not need Ferrari, F1 does not need German GP, F1 does not need youtube, F1 does not need sim racers now…

    As a sim racer and mod developer myself.. I laugh at FOM, there are workarounds to FOM in sim world… Or atleast there were until today.

    Great. F1 then clearly does not need Ecclestone.

    1. F1 only needs Rolex, sheikhs, & dictators.

      1. Brilliant…..thats the BCE code of business ethic to a tee !

  8. I’m not glad to this.

  9. I’m getting the impression both Bernie and FOM have it in their heads that the more they gate F1, the more special it will seem and the more people they’ll draw in. They’ve yet to realise that’s a long term route to absolute disaster as they’ll never be able to bring in as many curious people as they’ll lose.

    1. CVC does NOT care. The investors are probably looking for very short term profit. It does not seem like a long term goal.
      It will never turn into a disaster if everyone keeps watching, supporting, going to GP’s.
      I’ve stopped. If everybody stops only then will this garbage that is supposed to be Formula One, will crash & hopefully some new properly run series will emerge.

  10. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    28th March 2016, 0:37

    I am astonished a Pretend Race Cars article made it to F1Fanatic. It’s a completely trashy blog, like Women’s Day magazine on crack. It’s written with sensationalist ideals, zero fact checking or proper sourcing. It’s an embarrassment to journalistic standards.

    Firstly, Austin (yes, his name is Austin, not James) is wrong when he says that over “30 pages” of mods were removed. The mods that were removed per the request were merged into one centralized thread. This included all the comments that people left when the mods were freely available.

    But 30 pages sounds more dramatic, so of course he says that. Lol.

    Secondly, the FOWC were perfectly within their rights to request the takedown of all the 2016 F1 mods from our site as they contravened the Intellectual property and Copyright section of our Terms of Serivce.

    1. I don’t think anyone disputes that FOM are within their rights to request a takedown. The question is whether it is *wise* for them to do so. The mods for the official F1 games in particular do not deprive FOM of revenue nor compete with any official product. If anything, they increase the value of the existing licensed product at no cost to FOM. Just because something is legally sound doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. If F1 continues to antagonize its most devoted fans, it will lose them.

    2. Whether it’s “right” or not, it sucks badly for the fans. The people who love the sport and want to be involved in that world.

      1. Mike, the thing is, a number of those mods would have been taken down by that website anyway given that they contained material ripped from other games or from other modders.

        If anything, FOM’s action is something of a blessing in disguise for most of the sim racing community. The spate of ripping within the sim racing community has reached the point where it is seriously damaging the modding community, since modders are becoming increasingly wary of releasing mods, or even just refusing to release mods altogether, because they are seeing their work being abused almost immediately.

        The sort of person who produced that sort of mod that RaceDepartment took down rarely loves the sport and does not care for fan involvement – they just want the attention that comes with producing the first mod with the latest cars in it and have no qualms about whose work they have to rip off to do it.

      2. There was another article doing the rounds on twitter about blogs having to remove the words F1, Formula one etc from their title and some F1 twitter pages have been closing due to pressure from FOM for using these terms.

        As this site uses F1 in its title has Keith heard anything about it?

    3. Hi @tophercheese21, I’m the one who tpped Keith about the PRC article.

      While I completely agree with you that PRC is a sensationalist website, I think this article was definitely worth sharing because it shows FOM is going further and further in enforcing their copyright and intellectual property rights (the question if those mods were any good or if they were ripped off of other people isn’t the question here).

      As such, I thought that FOM taking down mods is newsworthy, just like Lewis Hamilton being ordered to stop taking Snapchats at F1 races is newsworthy (http://wtf1.co.uk/hamilton-snapchat-banned/).

  11. It’s a shame that Bernie seems not to care much about traditional circuits in Europe. But if you think of it, F1 will keep going on without Monza. But the question is; for how long? What’s the point that it survives and then dies a few years after it had been completely gutted of the very things that kept the sport going and endeared it to millions of fans in Europe first, and later to the world?

    – There will be more developments to come ..and our rate of development is where we want it to be. -Ferrari

    Some continue to say the Ferraris have not yet caught up with the Mercedes. I doubt that. It was mentioned on several occasions towards the end of the season last year that Ferrari’s 2016 power unit was on par [in power output] with that of Mercedes with minor differences occurring in the areas of chassis and energy deployment as the the hybrid unit interacts.
    Having worked further on the necessary areas over the winter, the pace that Ferrari displayed in Melbourne, at least to me rivaled that of Mercedes and I must say that without their strategy error, it would have been an easy win for Seb. Maybe even a 1,2 had Kimi’s engine not failed him, after all Nico had no answer to Kimi’s pace up until the incident.
    Ferrari are clearly out for a 2016 championship victory – Constructors or Drivers. And they are working steadfastly towards that.
    Seb is particularly superb in the second half of the season. Since I have been watching F1, for 2 decades +, I am yet to see any driver as monstrous in performance as Seb usually is in the later stages of the season. When every one is getting tired and slightly bored with the season, usually after the summer break, is when he digs deep and finds whatever it is that makes him stronger.
    In 2016, all he needs to do is to keep his finishes high during the first half of the season and then everything will come to him per car dev/upgrades and circuits he loves in the second half.

    This is shaping up to be a good season, especially if we have a fight on our hands.

    1. I reckon he was expecting pole via a second run at Aussie but that stupid qualifying stopped that. Hence he and others were spurred into writing to BE.

      F1 looks as if it’s following the money and that’s all. Millions of watchers to get in China and India, big bucks in Abu Dhabi. That’s all that matters to the top jobs. Minnows like European countries can go for a drive.

    2. Duncan Snowden
      28th March 2016, 13:46

      “But the question is; for how long? What’s the point that it survives and then dies a few years after it had been completely gutted of the very things that kept the sport going and endeared it to millions of fans in Europe first, and later to the world?”

      At the rate it’s going, I don’t give it much more than 15 years. If that. If it survives at all beyond 2030, it won’t be as the mass-audience global phenomenon Bernie turned it into before he lost his marbles. I imagine something more like the Red Bull Air Races, or F1 Powerboats, to be honest. In fact, I can’t help thinking of the WRC: back in the ’90s, it was almost as mainstream as F1. They devised those head-to-head superspecial stages for live (FTA) TV. Schoolboys fought over the respective merits of the Impreza WRX and the Mitsubishi Evo. Richard Burns’s death was front-page news. And now? Well, I, for one, couldn’t tell you the reigning champion without looking it up. Obscurity can happen.

    3. Easy win, probably not, but I hazard a guess he won more races after leading first lap than not. He was simply destroyed by strategy.

      Also Mercedes seem to be perticullary poor while following other cars…. Lewis couldnt pass a Toro Rosso… Imagine trying to pass Vetel… We would have an almighty race without strategy blunder…

  12. Do you think Ferrari ever regret firing aldo Costa in 2011? They needed a fall guy and he was there man. And to top it off they replaced him with pat fry. Costa was the one who wanted Ferrari to build a new wind tunnel (which was turned down) later they discovered their wind tunnel didn’t even work after building a dog of a car. He’s clearly been a major part of Mercedes success even in 2013 before the engine change he had them challenging redbull.

    1. Aldo Costa is indeed a great chassis engineer, in Ferrari he replaced Ross Brawn as a technical director which is the position he always looked for (and that was his weakness). In Mercedes Costa returned to his natural role, Paddy Lowe is the technical director and Geoff Willis is in charge of the car’s design

    2. ads, between 2010 and 2014, Ferrari was in a considerable state of flux amongst its senior technical leads as first Montezemolo and then Arrivabene restructured the team.

      Pat Fry actually serves as something of a useful guide for how turbulent the team was at that time, given that his role was repeatedly changed. He joined in 2010 and served under Aldo Costa as an Assistant Technical Director, then at the start of 2011 Fry was asked to also take on the task of organising race strategies.

      In the middle of 2011, Ferrari abolished the role of Technical Director and created a new “director of chassis” role that was then allocated to Fry. In effect, Ferrari chose to split Costa’s old role amongst three people (Marmorini being placed in charge of developing electrical components and Lanzone given the production development role); Fry didn’t quite take on Costa’s role because Costa’s old role effectively ceased to exist in 2011.

      In mid 2013, Ferrari changed their management again by bringing in Allison as the “Chassis Technical Director”, with Fry being shifted to a new role as “Director of Engineering” before he finally left the team in 2014. Really, Ferrari’s management was in a mess in that era and most figures probably would have struggled to adapt to being given three or four different roles in a three year period.

      1. shows what miracles alonso produced in a team in that kind of mess really

        1. @q85 It really does. I often hear people blame Alonso for Ferrari not winning during those years, which is just silliness. Vettel is fortunate to have Arrivabene at the helm, as well as not have Luca around.

          I sometimes see parallels for Alonso’s time with Ferrari for Alesi’s. At least the Ferrari’s of Alonso’s era could reach the finish line, though.

      2. Wow, when you read all that you can see how they managed to build garbage cars year after year. Seems like complete insanity. Surprised they even managed to finish 2nd with all that going on

        1. ads, and the changes which I have listed there are only a fraction of the changes that were made to the senior technical leads as Ferrari between 2010 and 2014 – they also changed their chief tyre engineer, the head of their engine and hybrid power unit departments and the director of their wind tunnel team, just to pick out a few of the more notable changes.

          Asides from that, you also have to bear in mind that also coincided with a period where Ferrari had persistent wind tunnel correlation issues, forcing them to eventually split their wind tunnel testing across three different facilities (their own wind tunnel, Sauber’s wind tunnel and Toyota Motorsport Group’s facilities). That process in itself also introduced other correlation issues, which caused further delays and issues with the introduction of new parts.

          Asides from that, there was considerable political tension between Marchionne and Montezemolo, with the latter claiming that the former worked to destabilise the latter in his (ultimately successful) quest to force him out of Ferrari so he could go ahead with his expansion plans for the marque.

          All in all, Alonso was somewhat unfortunate to arrive at Ferrari shortly before, in retrospect, what looks to have been one of the most turbulent periods in their history. Vettel is somewhat fortunate that he has arrived at the team after most of that infighting calmed down, but the fact that Allison was rumoured to have been close to being fired in 2015 suggests that, if Ferrari find themselves slipping back at any point, there is the possibility that we could see some of that infighting come to the surface again.

  13. Dom Cobb 75 (@)
    28th March 2016, 1:09

    Well, technically F1 doesn’t need an Italian GP to survive, but it would be poorer without one, whether it’s at Monza, Mugello or Imola. The trouble is, Bernie’s business model doesn’t really make sense.

    1. It makes sense now, but give it 20 years and sport will be just part of history…

  14. F1 would be much better off with the Italian Grand Prix, and without the albatross.

  15. Guybrush Threepwood
    28th March 2016, 2:38

    The Renault has made big strides yet there is still the same deficit in the speed traps as last year (~10 kph in Melbourne).

  16. Looks like we’ll see anti Bernie banners in Monza this year..?

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      28th March 2016, 8:42

      Doubt we’ll see that, @ernietheracefan. Not fan shots on TV this year.

  17. F1 needs an Italian GP as the Tifosi would go ballistic.

  18. Well so much hate from the comments here, but Bernie is right. F1 can live without Monza nor Italian GP. It can live without any other historical circuits too like Silverstone or Monaco. However, what it should have do is replace them with another circuit that have potential to become another legendary circuit. COTA is a good example of new circuit that most likely to become legendary in the future. It’s a shame though to see Monza gone while we still have Yas Marina in the calendar.

    As a side note, some legendary circuit is objectively bad for current F1 if people want to remove their rose tinted glasses. Like new Hockenheim, and Monaco(!). Especially Monaco nowadays only make news from controversy (Rosberg cheating in qualifying? Hamilton blunder by pitting on SC) but the race itself is processional because it becoming too hard to overtake even in Grand Hotel hairpin and the swimming pool chicane.

    1. Monaco will stay because of its money. Russia is a new track and it was awful.

      1. Not a matter of hate, Sonics….simply a matter of facing up to the crippling damage CVC Capital Partners
        under their F1 Grand Vizier a Mr Bernard Charles Ecclestone, a former back street car dealer with some extremely dubious friends and associates who just happened to become interested in motor racing. Who became a team manager in the early F1 days and then quickly began to realise that there was Zero unified thinking among the many and varied F1 racing teams, and that a really sharp business mind ( His ! )
        could exploit all the discord and bring the teams under his control.

        Which, in the fullness of time, is exactly what he did. And by that means became extremely rich, extremely greedy, and entirely without scruple of any sort.

        I repeat that last phrase: The man is entirely without scruple of any sort !

        QED.

        1. @loen Did you just QED my point of people is just hating Bernie? :)

      2. Russia produces better race than Monaco for current F1 era. That track certainly has potential, but many people is biased against it because Russia and Putin.

        1. Monaco isn’t about many overtakes, is about enjoying seeing the car and driver on the edge near the barriers and when an overtake does occur is memorable moment.

  19. Ignore Bernie, he’s just trying to send a message to the Monza bosses, and to get fans agitated to reinforce his position.

    1. Thank you. We shall be better not to be shocked every time Bernard rattles some saber somewhere. The Berns neither means what he says or says what he means. Every. Dang. Time.

  20. I agree bernie Monza doesn’t deserve to be in formula 1. As long as the Stupid rules you want to have and the money you suck from every Circuit so that you can go to Middle east than traditional f1 circuits , neither monza nor any circuit which has some tradition should be in current state of f1.

  21. Bernie will not charge Monaco anything because “F1 needs Monaco” and its rich history but he’s ready to drop Monza because Italy is not willing to pay some ridiculous amount of cash his petrodollars clients are (were) ok paying without a blink?

    If God keeps him healthy and FOM keeps him at the helm of F1, Bernie will soon step up him pressure on circuits like Silverstone and Spa to either give him more cash or leave…

  22. I’m wondering if Red Bull are just playing nice with Renault because they now have to, or whether there is genuine optimism regarding their PU developments. Honestly, if Renault can catch up to Ferrari in Pu performance by the start of next season, then it should be a cracker of a 2017 season, and we’d probably see Red Bull ahead of Ferrari again.

    What I really want to know, is how much behind is Honda. If Ron didn’t block Red Bull’s Honda supply deal, it would be great to see how much further down the grid Red Bull would drop. Would they be battling the Mclarens, Saubers and Haas? I think within a season or two the PU performance will not be as massive a differentiator it is now, at least between Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault. Honda I think, due to it’s massive design risk, will always be underpowered and sub par. I don’t see any team winning with a Honda PU unless they scrap their current formula, make a copycat Merc PU and take a few years to get it running at optimum performance. Maybe in 2020 they would have got it right

    1. I feel optimism for the sport if Red Bull can begin to mend bridges with Renault. Red Bull and Torro Rosso leaving would be horrible.

    2. @todfod, I pretty much agree. If Renault (PU) improves and start to match Ferrari than we’re in for a great 2017 season with Red Bull back at the front. I also agree regarding Honda; they aren’t going to win any championships soon. I do think they can make good gains, but I doubt they will beat the other top teams/manufacturers with the current regulations. Next year the competitive order could very well be Merc-Red Bull-Ferrari-Mclaren, followed by the PU-costumers and (still developing) Renault.

    3. If the power unit performance were to converge to somewhere near comparable, 90% of F1’s problems would disappear over night.

      I think a simplification of the power unit come 2020 is inevitable.

      Looking over to the WEC, Toyota have entered this season with a 2.4L V6 twin-turbo, with 8MJ front and rear axle. If we remember the call for “expressions of interest” in supplying independent engines to F1 (currently sat on the backburner), we’ll remember that that was for a 2.2L V6 twin-turbo, no hybrid. 4 independent manufacturers answered that call within the space of a fortnight.

      For me, this is the way F1 has to go come 2020. An ICE which can be built/developed by an independent manufacturer aswell, and then independent companies can supply the batteries and MGU’s for harvesting/deploying on/off the front and rear axles.

      That would work for everyone.

      1. @thef1engineer, there is the major caveat that an “expression of interest” just comprises of a letter confirming that the party would potentially be interested in bidding – it doesn’t mean that the company in question will actually bid or can actually fulfil the tender criteria (I have certainly come across a number of instances in the past where parties have intentionally submitted non compliant tenders for projects as a way of maintaining contacts with a client for future work prospects).

        Furthermore, whilst it may be the case that four different independent manufacturers might have put out press releases expressing interest, I thought that only two parties – AER and Ilmor – actually submitted a formal “expression of interest”. At the very least, whilst Cosworth initially put out a statement confirming their interest and suggested they would bid, they later decided that the proposal wasn’t financially viable and declined to enter the tender process.

        As I’ve said before, even if you drastically simplified the regulations, I still think that there is still not enough demand for engines from independent suppliers for it to be economically viable for them to compete in F1.

        Using your example of the WEC, there is only one independent engine supplier in the entire field, which happens to be AER. Even then, their place in the WEC is extremely precarious – there is a lot of pressure on the ACO to deliver affordable regulations by the 4th April or we might witness the end of independent manufacturers in the WEC altogether in 2017.

  23. Well, it was about the time when France lost its GP that passion for F1 started declining, followed by rather strange decisions on where it would go. Leave out Monza and F1 will definitely become a circus with clowns only.

  24. I think it’s a usual case of Bernie putting the pressure on to force out a better contract. So, I am not alarmed.

    The problem is, in order to enforce the reputation that lets you do that, you do occasionally have to do things that are unfortunate, because if they call your bluff, the whole house falls down.

  25. Bernie’s thoughts about F1: Yeah but, no but yeah but no but yeah,… I bet for 50€’s that he’s going to change his mind yet again…

    1. But don’t worrie Bernie, I do it too :p

  26. Living in a bit of a dream world here I know, but I really think a race fee should just be fixed at say $10million for all circuits.

    Then circuits can swap with each other, drop-out one year, come back another etc. Mixes up the calendar a bit season to season. Can consequently price tickets accordingly, get more people through the gates etc.

    Requires the sport not being owned by a hedge fund to achieve that though, sadly :(.

    1. No, It just requires ‘fans’ to boycott F1 for a year. Don’t subscribe, don’t go to the circuit, don’t buy the merchandise. When the money pot vanishes, all will be fixed. Chances of this happening? Zero.

  27. Ok.. here’s a thought. Do these teams need F1? If I were the team bosses, I would consider setting up their own arrangement beyond the end of Concorde agreement. One in which they were in charge: they could change the rules so that close racing and innovation were possible. They could sell the TV rights to terrestrial companies. They could race at the circuits they feel are worthy: not just follow the oil money (although there would need to be a degree of this!) They could appoint a leader that they feel could steer their ship: Ron Dennis? Ross Brawn? Someone else with motorsport experience? They could set up and maintain a proper management structure that would actually be effective. They could have the tyres that they want. Anyone else think this is a bad idea? Now is the time to act!

    1. @mattb That seems to me like a pretty FOTAesque concept…..

      1. I really see this as the only way forward for F1. The teams, if they care either, need to arrest the whole circus from Bernie’s control. He really has no idea about the best way forward for F1 anymore. It just seems to lurch from one crisis to the next.

        If Monza goes so will I. I am pretty sure once the terrestrial tv coverage stops may people won’t bother with F1 anymore.

  28. Monza is Monza!
    It is a track with huge traditions. It is the fastest track in average lap time. Cars go with low downforce so overtakes are easier. Fans are fantastic here. Monza is much more better than Imola. I don’t want to see F1 without Monza, it is much more important than money and Bernie!!
    It would be a huge SHAME if we miss Monza!!

  29. Martin VanNostrand
    28th March 2016, 14:09

    Personally…I was thinking that Formula One doesn’t have to have Bernie Ecclestone. Like the guy, but some times he just needs to keep his senile thoughts to himself.

  30. All the furor so far this year confirms me in my decision to pass on the USGP this fall and instead go to another Indycar race (this time the new street circuit in Boston in September.) I am happy to watch the F1 races (since I need NBCSN to watch Indycar anyway) but Indycar gets my money because in my view I get better value and a better fan experience with Indycar than F1 (on top of not lining the pockets of CVC to continue to damage F1).

  31. I hope this is a political power play by Bernie. It may not work out for him or F1. But at face value, I’ve seldom heard such a wrong comment about F1 in my life. F1 absolutely needs the Italian GP- not having Monza as the Italian GP venue will be shame, but not having the Italian GP at all will be a complete travesty.

  32. Errr, Yeah it does!!!

  33. Bernie: for the record, F1 also doesn’t need spectators for qualifying. (Or more accurately, need them or not it soon won’t have them – you know, like Monza…)

  34. F1 could also do without Monaco, but it’ll never happen. It is without a doubt THE most boring race on the F1 calendar. Very rarely does it produce spectacular races, there’s nowhere to overtake and tell whole venue is full of celebs who are there for the sake of being there.

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