There will be much FIA activity in the next few days in Istanbul, Turkey, where the annual General Assembly takes place on Friday afternoon. This will be followed by the FIA Prizegiving Gala, which will take place in the Ciragan Palace Kempinski Hotel, located on the shores of the Bosphorus. This was once a residence of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The FIA delegates will be busy all week with a string of meetings that begin today, including various commissions and meetings of the two World Councils before the General Assembly itself.
The World Motor Sport Council should produce a final Formula 1 calendar for 2013 with some late moves going on to try to get races included, following the announcement that New Jersey will not be ready in time for next year.
One such project comes from local businessman Vural Ak, who recently purchased an 11-year lease on the Istanbul Park racing circuit, and is hoping to talk Bernie Ecclestone into putting the event back on the F1 calendar. The problem is money with Ecclestone wanting $26 million for the first year, although Ak says that this is negotiable. He says that he is willing to invest $5 million and the local government will pay $13.5 million, but this still leaves around $8 million to find. Ak says that he believes that he can bring in a crowd of 80,000 and aims to use the circuit all year round with other events, notably the DTM and a Turkish racing series. The track was used by F1 between 2005 and 2011, with the Formula One group taking over the promotion in 2007. Ak is the chairman and majority shareholder of the Intercity rent-a-car company. He has agree to rent the track from its owners for $9 million a year.
There has been much talk of a French Grand Prix but it seems that the Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile (FFSA) was not sufficient confident in any of the projects to put them forward to the World Council as neither Paul Ricard nor Magny Cours had the budget needed.
Would AK be able to bring back Moto GP to the Turkish circuit? It may be the case that this is considered uneconomic but if it is then it would add another event and create generate more activity at the circuit.
What a pity the circuit owner at Paul Ricard can’t find the money to bring the French GP back onto the calendar but I guess he is more interested in others paying for him and the F1 circus to turn up elsewhere, especially those places where funding comes from government sources.
Any news on whether or not the BRDC has found an organisation prepared to take a lease on the Silverstone circuit to offset all the development and delivery costs associated with the GP contract and others. It was over a year ago that the men from Qatar were about to sign but they were tempted elsewhere it seems.
According to Wikipedia, the Paul Ricard circuit is owned by the firm Excelis which, in turn, is owned by a Mr. Ecclestone. Guess Bernie doesn’t buy his own sales pitch.
Wikipedia is wrong. The circuit is owned by Excelis, which is owned by the Bambino Trust. The trust is in favour of the Ecclestone children. The trustee is Swiss lawyer Luc Argand.
Time and a German court will show whether it is entirely incorrect.
Istanbul Park is a good track, would be happy to see it back.
Also, the way the calendar is going it would be nice to have another European race.
Turkey is Asia
No, part of Turkey is in Europe.
…but the part that has the track on it is not. Still would consider it a European race, though.
At 40° 57′ 20.5″ N, 29° 24′ 29.7″ E, the track is in Asia.
The great majority of Turkey, the Anatolian part, is indeed in Asia, and that includes the country’s capital city, most of its population and the Instanbul Park circuit.
I love these arguments. Mainly because I am so undernourished in true study. Just take a look at even the impoverished Wikipedia little maps of the rise of cultures and empires, and that’s before any slightest debate is held about what constitutes “asia” or “europe” or the cultures, languages or affinities. I have tried to study, lately and when I can, the Levantine cultures, and they are a eye opener of themselves. I find these geographical distinctions utterly arbitrary. You would by nature, find my Kazakh friend essentially, and in large part genetically, “european”, but classify him that way? You’d have some reincarnation of Genghis getting the hump with you! (Just to note, Stalin and many before him thought Kazakhstan was a great place to exile of whom they were dis-enamoured. Germans, Polish, and many more accidental diaspora who found themselves outnumbered. I sadly only got to see the wedding photos, but my true Mongol (in appearance) friend pulled a stunning girl who’d flatter the pages of any western magazine. Oh, and is unbelievably well educated, to boot. Inevitably, both have european descent though that is not their identity, and maybe not prevalent in the current incarnations they exist in, either. My biz partner has a chequered family, a phrase I find increasingly abhorrent as it tells you nothing. But, if I may be forgiven, my point is simply that there is no clear boundary between regions that artificially exist for school boy maps in outmoded textbooks. As a race we have, some sources say, survived from a minuscule gene pool, and most classical texts suggest that miscegenation is the key to safety of health and procreation of able offspring. Sometimes I think it is the early boundaries between the far earlier civilisations which form the hottest of contesting human foundries, merely because there is such a latent but long misunderstood cultural memory of what once was a more harmonious enpassant but procreative of all manner, culture failing, and then falling apart. I fear I will not have the time in life to explore that idea with any true care, but invite any pretty girl who would like to so join me to such a endeavour, if it can be published in ways normal people might read.
John,
“…if it can be published in ways normal people might read…”
Unlikely.
Biggus, I am not merely contempplating that problem, but have dedicated my entire adult life from a teenager, to attempt this, squandering fortunes, health, wealth and even love to puruse that dream. I found just a few angles, and they only started to make sense after about 20 years. You may well say “unlikely” and I am inclined to agree. But I do have a angle, and it is my true dedication. Maybe something will come, yet.. I hope that if in any way I succeeed, you will not be displeased. ~ j
Turkey don’t seem to mind competing in the UEFA European Championships or the European qualifying competition for the FIFA World Cup.
As ever, I’d gladly spit £20 into a fund to get Imola back on the calendar. Hell I’d even smoke a pack of Marlboro and buy a Ferrari.
Wow, can you imagine renting a race circuit for $9 million a year! Especially in Istanbul…, go for it Ak, good luck mate
Joe, something I never quite understood – if the Formula 1 group took over promotion of the race in 2007, and then the race was deemed a failure due to lack of promotion & subsequent empty seats, doesn’t that mean that it is the Formula 1 group that has failed?
Yes.
Shock! As far as I can tell, Formula One Group/FOM or whomever (assuming that they are all wrapped up together through the labyrinthine company structures) seem to do no visible marketing of the sport whatsoever despite taking their vast amounts of cash from it. Not news to you, Joe, as you have mentioned it many times but how can it be that there is no promotion or marketing of the sport AS A WHOLE?
This isn’t to overlook the other glaringly obvious point here: namely, that if Bernie can’t even make the numbers work around “owning” a GP, then what hope can there possibly be for anyone else?
Joe – does this kind of stuff ever come up in the paddock, or do they just not care enough about anything that doesn’t directly impact their team’s bottom line and/or competitiveness?
What a perfect location for a General Assembly! I like to remember the time I’ve spent at Ciragan Palace on many different occasions. And Turkish food is one of the best on this planet. Let me say “Merhaba” to my Turkish friends in Istanbul. But, halas! The nice words end here.
The circuit has a very good lay-out, easily the second best of the Tilkodroms. But the public interest of all things F1 is totally absent in this country. This is why it will never make a profit. Unless Mr E reduces his ticket to a quarter of what it is now (That’s the Mr E who was treated as sort of “senile” by his old sparring partner Luca on Sunday 3 Dec.)
Very recently Bernie was saying that more European races will be cut, so this will make a Turkish return very very difficult! I love Turkey but F1 is like an alien over there. It’s always a shame to see races with empty grand stands and zero public interest.
Merhaba Pierre,
The interest to the race was somewhat on the rise when they’ve built the circuit, but you’ve hit the nail on the head when you wrote “Unless Mr E reduces his ticket to a quarter of what it is now”. I wouldn’t go as far as a quarter, but the sentiment is the same.
John (the other John) and I had a series of comments a month or so ago on how Bernie picked the worst of the three locations offered for the track that does not allow one to incorporate the race into a two weeks’ family vacation. Istanbul is a clusterf**k to get around on the greatest of days, and throw in a huge event like F1 and you’re not going anywhere for hours.
Anyway interesting that they’re holding the general assembly and prize giving gala in Istanbul, I hope the delegates and the teams/drivers enjoy themselves.
If “Istanbul Park” was created on my watch as Tourism Minister, I’d be looking for honourable ways to exit this world. I find the whole farce a insult to what is nothing less than insane reaches of natural beauty. No politics, just God’s gift of land.
I’d like to have a few words with some unimaginative German property developers, though. In private, in a dark alley way . . .
In all honesty, the travesties with which people scar the land are of course not confined to the coasts of Turkey. I hold the same opinion as to the despoliation of the canalsides close to me, which insult and menacingly enclose without imagination nor let of human freedom, our local landscape, in much the same way I imagine Neptune’s wrath ought to be invoked unto some developments I visited along the eastern Turkish coast. Yes, I know where all the third rate German building supplies exports were dumped.
This brings me to despair. Unless your name is Sobieski* and you have a particular view of the siege of Vienna then you can at a glance see the positive implications of the Ottoman incursions into Europe, and the role Secular Turkey so desperately needs to play in modern life’s theater. If you don’t believe me, go walk about Karmeliterviertel in Wien, to see some genuine recent mixed immigration that works.
Instead, we get a racetrack in what can barely be described as situated in a desert.
Honestly, it’s a indescribable and unforgivable failure on the part of all sides, to present such a country in this way.
I think maybe their Foreign Office minister might rightfully wistfully fondle a loaded Luger, should they ever be fully cognisant of the squandered opportunity.
But the blame must be spread more widely. It is the very manner in which F1 is sold, that attracts these unsustainable schemes, these fantastic follies, which increasingly we can see only as the twisted self denuding foibles of cheap, worthless “capital” now becoming a blight on all of us. With greater irony, I do not believe it is Bernie, who caught on to this idea of the modern money honeypot, but instead his co – conspirators in governmental departments. I may have a soft spot for Bernie, after all I learned a lot from his wheeling and dealing to get me the occasional deal, but I am not in love, and the scales long fell from my eyes.
Ahh, Turkey . .
well, apart from the fun it was once dragging in two friends, one who I forgot was a not inconsiderable Cypriot shipping scion, to my favourite Turkish restaurant (who, in days when late opening was unheard of, kept me happy almost every night, in the barren wasteland that was then Victoria, London) .. should I mention my Cypriot friend was a accomplished martial arts dude? Much fun ensued, anyhow, if you have that kind of humour . . . graciously our hosts did . . . What he never knew is that his cousin happily accompanied me there, without such hystrionics, boy do I miss men of true scholarship . . but as usual I digress . . my point simply that good food was missed, and I learned how not to cross a shipping scion ever again!
I challenge anyone to drive that coastline and not imagine a Bond Villain Lair at every turn, only without the villain bit. Okay, I cheated, I had a driver so I could figure out the land. But it’s all there. Makes me think of how California was broken in. Do I have to say John Houston, Chinatown?
Also, and though there are some serious questions as to how Turkey is unloading bullion gold to sell in China, through the balance of payments accounting back door, it may yet turn out to be the safest place financially, to exist. (Me, I’m set, office and all on demand from friends I made) But then, if I were in America, I’d be a fully paid up member of the NRA right now (and I was fraught a healthy dislike of weapons at school) so figure I am just a bit protective of my view of life. Which, to my tremendous delight, I found reflected constantly, and in no touristic genuflection, when I was there.
I think there is a far more important, vital, and human, pitch to sell than just a Tilkedrome. I intend to be back to where I travelled within a few weeks. No tourists. Super! (I grew up on the coast, so a bit of sea spray will harm me not)
Allahaısmarladık, Ishan.
* A dear old pal is of that descent, and still enacts his daily life as if under assault, aged 81 – he’s way cool though, used to smuggle guys to safety as the Four Power Berlin collapsed, and much besides. I hope I can cut through the tall stories and dross of long held vitriol, born of a fear of insignificance before he passes, because there’s one hell of a book in this man. We’d have been done, years ago, thousands of hours of interview tape, but cutting the personal vendettas, one of which already caused another heavily promoted book to be pulped, is sheer literary purgatory. I must not have written well enough in another life.
John,
“…I must not have written well enough in another life…”
Nor this one.
I merely try, Biggus. Though I thought your above comment harsh. I dare you to read the drafts of what are sold “Oprah Style” of even the first attempts of any of my father’s some 50 plays. All I said was that I would endeavour to write better here, and since I have no subscribers, not can use my name and experiences to relate to you a story or maybe a few stories not appropriate for Joe’s pages, will you at least in so many words say as to whether you wish to encourage my attempts to improve that which apparently some like, or to clearly turn your thumb down? I gain none of the benefits of being participant in this blog, and receive at best only the criticism, which word I do not consider pejorative. I hope you will at least reconsider the meaning of what you so wryly commented, or at least out do me as to literary essays ~ j
Just havin’ a dig, John. Love your posts.
Always a pleasure, Biggus. But I was tempted to think you’d become a wapscallion
It seems Mr. Ak is an interesting character. He is a graduate of the Bosphorus University, one of the top ranked schools in Turkey, with a degree in international relations and politics, started the fleet rental company when he was 21, failed once, and started again, this time ending up selling the 45% of the company to Mitsubishi Group.. Looks like he competes in local cross races once in a while (equivalent of SCCA cross/track events here in the US).
Most recently he seems to have granted US $4 million, to George Mason University to fund “The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies”, but I digress…
I half hope he succeeds. Growing up in Turkey, I never had a standing chance to try racing/motorsports as it was a “beyond rich sport” with lower mid class parents, and I’d like to see a motorsports culture and “history” start to develop in Turkey.
$35 million just to begin to break even? With 80,000 seats that’s $438 for the weekend. Please add in promotional costs and it gets even worse.
Not a wonder that F1 is dying on its arse where attracting junior supporters goes, is it? My experience is that kids aren’t interested in F1 until they’ve experienced it first hand, but taking a second mortgage just for a family weekend to an F1 race simply isn’t justifiable. I can have a week at Disneyland for significantly less outlay than three days at the Circuit of the Americas would have cost us. Guess my kids will be into hockey and soccer like all their friends.
Be careful how good a hockey player you let them become, a kid playing Triple A hockey in Canada will cost you a real second mortgage each year.
I vote for the resurgence of Squash Rackets.
But then I’m biased, not for having been a brat on what is a hardly visible circuit even in modern multi channel broadcasting, but because of the intense connection I have through that to my long late father. Also, it really is a inexpensive sport, (I mentally practise shots in any space with walls, a garage will do for training pretty well) whilst being as intense or leisurely as you like. My dad likened it to chess, you think your move whilst the other plays, and the time that gave allowed my dad to play competitively into his 80s. I think I’ve finally got a real chance to publish his extraordinary volume of thoughts on technique, far more than was ever originally published in series. As usual one of my cobbled deals, but with a publisher with a fair catalogue, who have expressed interest in me to promote them.
Squash is cheap and keeps you fit, court time tends to be cheap,particularly at 6am, which was when I was taken to practise, and it’s time my father’s exhaustive work on advanced technique saw the light of day again. The game has changed. Jonah Barrington was effectively my father’s nemesis. But that aggressive style, which to my mind has dulled so much of the spectator interest, was built on what was before, not a complete re-write. I’d dare say it’s a excellent occupation for a young boy. Moreover there are many styles which can win, below true international level. It’s – at least in my experience – a beautiful way to understand precision, delicacy, and the moments when speed means real advantage.
At the very least, it is not a sport which has learned yet to gouge parents’ pocket books. And I still get a kick that somehow the US Junior team mistook me I presume for my late father, and I was copied in all their team talk before the last big comp. Not because of inadvertent flattery, but because they were plain good kids. If I had my own, I’d be pretty chuffed if they kept such company.
Bit of trivia: Armourcoat, who are known now for high end plaster finishes normally only seen in expensive architecture, began as plasterers for Squash courts. Unless, like me, you have a fetish for wallpaper (another British company who do more than their bit for our export business – amazing how much their materials are seen in in large hotel chains around the world, I keep spotting them – is Muraspec) Armourcoat are actually super value if you want your walls to look the nuts for a good 30 years and likely far longer.
Joe, I know this isn’t really your beat, but since the FIA General Assembly with no doubt be discussing many topics in the coming weeks, any thoughts on the FIA’s mismanagement and all-but-total destruction of the WRC?
At one time I thought it was a personal vendetta against David Richards and an attempt at keeping him out of the sport at any cost, but now… I dunno, it looks pretty bleak.
And if anyone can suggest a blog or journalist providing Joe-quality coverage of WRC, I’d appreciate the link.
I think the WRC was forced to dump a promoter at the wrong time, had to unstitch the silly ideas of the previous administration and now needs time to get moving again. It will happen.
That’s good to hear. Thank you.
The Sportwagon (@sportwagon) give a try here:
http://worldrallyfever.wordpress.com/
That’s a fun link, thanks, Go_For_Pole
(I mean, right up, a Opel Manta, the road standard of which was a great friend’s favorite. This Internet thing is getting too big, by far, to my view. But I liked that view, Cheers!)
I owned a 1968 Opel Kadette “Rallye” (flat blacked out engine hood and fog lights), as sold/serviced here in the States by GM’s Buick division,;possibly the worst car I’ve ever owned.
Later Opel 2.8s were proper Q cars, though, IMO. I’m talking “vintage” – as in what boys could (with effort and ingenuity, not gifts from rich parents, and our parents were extremely well off, by any normal basic imagination of that, and not what people call rich today) afford in the late 80′s and early 90′s.
Your reference is firmly before anyone had heard of Six Sigma QA, or for that matter any kind of QA that wasn’t basically a shop steward signing off absentee employees. Straight from I’m All Right Jack, Peter Sellers’ first notable performance, unless you care for his regurgitated Goon Show cameos in the otherwise brilliant The Naked Truth. I had a angle: my uncle on my mother’s side owned a regional insurance broker, so I could search through imaginary quotes for the most insane motors for outlier modest premiums. I recall Tom – my uncle – telling me to type in “Nigel Mansell” as the prospective policy holder. To our great displeasure, the computer did not expire in a cloud of white smoke!
I have been saving my pre-season purchase of Taiichi Ohno’s beautifully poetic work, “Toyota Production System” for these winter months, and I think in there, you will find just about any and all explanation of the rot of the European motor industry, by proxy, if not directly, because it was a work formed by the necessities of the very limited Japanese economy. It’s the least depressing book on business I have ever read. Which is injustice, it’s a delight of intellect.
This off season might just be fun. There’s court action aplenty, sponsor deals either forming or in the making that could turn this sport around (you imagine Coca Cola not exerting influence? That’s the one thing they do, very different from DM’s RB lot, who pick up the ball and run, rather than spell out the rules of the game) and to my view at least, a FIA who are more MIA. For which Joe needs to roll out his MIB.
Perfect! Thank you.