The latest iteration of the 2014 F1 calendar is floating around in Austin and the word is that three of the races listed are gone: Korea, New Jersey and Mexico. In addition to that the races in Russia and Japan have been switched and a gap created to make sure that everything can be certain to get from one venue to the other without drama. I am also hearing that the season will end in Abu Dhabi because of plasn to have a test immediately after the end of the season. The one thing that remains odd is that Australia is going to remain a stand alone race, which means that F1 folk will either have to go out and back or spend a month in the Asia Pacific region. The final calendar will be announced after the FIA meetings in the first week of December.
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joeblogsf1 
How can NJ be considered ‘ gone ‘ when in fact it was never officially ‘ on ‘ the calendar .. having only reached ‘ tentative ‘ status before finally being pulled completely ?
F1 logistics sucks.
NJ Grand Prix, fughetaboutit!
Australia the first race of the season, lovely for us that live down this end of the world, will get my hotel booked before they price gouge. 4 days of motor sport heaven, its the perfect opener to the season. So much to do and see and always pulls an excellent crowd of race fans. Hope Paul is still racing.
Be good for you Joe to get some sun on your bones after the winter in europe.
If the state government in Australia had any economic understanding they’d do the same as Korea and dump the race. The annual temporary circuit and the F1 fee add up to a big economic loser.
Here is the update of the cost-benefit analysis that found it lost the state economy $51.7m in 2011, $60.5m in 2012 and a net loss of $54.3m this year: http://www.ecolarge.com/blog/grand-priconomics-2013/ .
These studies were updates of a peer reviewed cost-benefit analysis originally commissioned by our independent auditor-general.
I thought the Save Albert Park people had all died of old age or sold their houses thanks to the rise in property prices and moved away… Your argument is ridiculous. The auditor-general does not allow for ANY intangible benefits from the race to be included in the reckoning, and there are clearly massive benefits for Melbourne on many different levels, not least putting it on the world map. Without F1 Melbourne will be a lot poorer, but if that is what the locals want to do it is their funeral. There are way too many whingers down there who just don’t get it. Why do you think they continue to host a Grand Prix, no matter which party is in power?
Joe,
I was a two term councillor and deputy mayor of the city that surrounds Albert Park, so I can confidently tell you the locals say time’s up for this expensive grand prix option.
You are probably only listening to someone very close to Bernie, so I recommend independent research, not contaminated by vested interest. I’d be happy to meet you and let you get your own sources.
The accounts show it costs $29m just to set up and pull down this temporary circuit each year. Multiply that by 18 and you could have had a couple of permanent circuits already. Australia’s motor racing industry needs a viable option – a year round track, like Silverstone. It might also be financially viable.
Cheers,
Peter
I know what the accounts say. But they are not the whole story. And you know it.
Why do you think they continue to host a Grand Prix, no matter which party is in power?
Payola
What do I win?
A prize for having no clue.
Seeing as the subject is that NJ isn’t happening, perhaps Mr. Pot could swing up WI way and award Mr. Kettle his prize in person… 😛
I reamin convinced that the event will happen. If not in 2014 then in 2015. You can sit there and take pot shots as much as you like but your opinion really has no value to me at all.
This economic ‘analysis’ is appallingly bad – no consideration of the wider global benefits created through the event’s international exposure; no calculation of positioning for the Melbourne brand as a world city or Australia as a significant world player; etc. I’m all for an informed debate but this data is one-sided.
There’s no need to be rude about Save Albert Park, Joe. We only deal in facts, and a lot of these come from your own posts. Regarding the Victorian Auditor-General’s 2007 cost benefit analysis of the 2005 Melbourne grand prix, no consideration was given to intangible benefits, such as ‘global exposure’ because there was no evidence that such exposure produced any benefits, for example in the form of increased tourism or new business opportunities. There is still no evidence any any such benefits.
Save Albert Park does not protest about the MotoGP (even though a lot of public money is being lost on staging the event) because it is held on a permanent, properly located private circuit. A perfect site for a permanent F1 circuit (which could have year-round use as a motor sport centre) is available next to the Avalon airport outside the city of Geelong. The grand prix would still lose a lot, but at least we wouldn’t have to pay the annual $29 million set-up and take down costs at Albert Park, and we would be spared 3-4 months noise and dust, loss of sports grounds and general amenity.
I was not being rude. I was stating facts.
If those few paragraphs represent what constitutes for peer review in economics, no wonder the world economies are in a mess. Not a mention of methodology nor workings nor a hint of evidence, just a couple of scatched out numbers (I can do you some new ones on the back of a fag packet that shows thd opposite if you like).
Take a look at some credible peer reviewed work in PLoS or nature or if you want scarily robust try a physics or chemistry journal, they’ll soon highlight just how poor this is .
This is hardly relevant but as a Victorian tax-payer I have to distance myself from this internet commando here.
People like the comment above are all too common here these days: self-righteous and selfish who rail against anything that costs $1 of public savings that they personally aren’t interested in. Then they compalin on the internet about it as if it was an epicdemic, forever insinuating that the (really quite prudent) government is as corrupt as the devil himself.
There is something quite sadistic about how this person went off his rocker at simply an acknowledgement of the Australian GP in an F1 blog!
Mate, the internet is a wonderful tool for mankind, but it doesn’t give you special executive power to condemn anything you don’t like, even if you are a “business analyst”.
For my 2c, the Australian GP is a crucial link for Motorsport and automotive engineering and shouldn’t be passed over purely because of NIMBYism. We have a lot of representation in the sport, and as a country so far away from the sports’ home we have some remarkable achievements in it. Melbourne also hosts several univeristies that have large automotive engineering departments which produce graduates that are capable of working at the pinnacle of Motorsport and in the wider automotive industry. These guys get their first taste for the sport at the GP.
Australian schools have also won the last three official F1 schools competitions so there is real grass-roots participation. You’d be surprised at how much funding the AFL and Rugby codes recieve that is economically inefficient.
Any analyst would also realise that it’s more important than ever for Australia to hold onto existing major events as the rest of the world develops and demands the right to host large sporting events, which is an intangible value.
We are getting the Grand Prix on the cheap and if we were to give in to the NIMBYs and not renew the contract when it comes it we would never see it again due to the competition for events.
It appears that Formula One genuinely enjoys being here, unlike the Aus Open which the ATP is forever threatening to move to Shanghai.
I’ll get down from my soapbox now, but I really felt compelled to publish a response to this whinger. There are plenty of people who enjoy F1 in Australia and I’m glad the Victorian government have continued to commit staging the event at Albert Park.
Business Analyst and Taxpayer,
Australia WOW…
Im a Taxpayer , Racer and supporter of Business in Victoria
This Event brings much more to Melbourne and Victoria than just race fans it promotes us to the world…..
Would McLaren’s dumping of Perez have had anything to do with the fore-warning that additional sponsorship opportunities would not have been forthcoming, should there have been no event in Mexico?
No
Well, Ron Walker can always propose that the Australian GP in March is transformed into a double-header.
Oz GP race 1 on the scheduled date, and a race 2 on the following weekend – or next. Now that would be a party start to the year, and make a proper use of the Australasian logistics costs for the F1 circus.
You know it makes sense….
I love that idea. Clockwise one weekend and anti-clockwise the next!
OR…. a weekend of testing (free to the public!) on the original race date FOLLOWED by the race the following weekend. THAT would generate some positive vibes! Of course you would have to maintain the track layout for a week. Could the local traffic survive that?
All the teams need as much real track time as they can lay into what with all the new rules.
So 19 races than. Which Bernie said that there will be 20 or 21 races in 2014 F1. Estoril should make a comeback as I believe it has got a F1 grade licence . Korea wanted to stay on the calendar and wanted to stage a night race for 2014. Maybe that the F1 calendar has a break in between Australia and Malaysia has got something to do with MotoGP.
Hasn’t the new MotoGP track in Argentina got its F1 grade licence?
No, it’s FIA Grade 2.
see: http://autodromotermas.com/images/varias/certificado-grado-2.jpg
Korea stage a night race? That’s a laugh! They can’t get it right when they can see what they are doing. Burned out lightbulbs in the middle of the race is just one of the things that would happen…
Oh well. I was going to go one last time if there was a race in 2014. I guess one bad experience will have to be enough.
F1 really needs to improve the transparency, integrity and fairness of its operations, governance, revenue-sharing, etc. I’m genuinely surprised that the sport isn’t up in front of the EU (anti?) competition commission yet!
Bernie, aka Lord Vetinari, is all about transparency :
‘And these are your reasons, my lord?’
‘Do you think I have others?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent.’
Hughnon reflected that ‘entirely transparent’ meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn’t see them at all.
You seem to be living in a parallel universe…
Very disappointed that New Jersey won’t be blessed by F1 in 2014. Hopefully they will realize that Bernie’s fees are a pittance compared to the benefits of having F1 in the Big Apple.
Benefits for who? Benefits for FOM? Benefits for the sponsors of the sport? Benefits for New York City? There would be little to no benefit for Hudson County, NJ, although the residents of Hudson County would be putting up with the extreme aggravation.
The bigger The Apple the less needed is the so called benefit, and the fiercer the competition for meager resources. Which is why, I suspect, the financing is lacking, both private and public.
There is one of the problems. New York would get the lion’s share of the cash, New Jersey would get all the hassle and blowback if/when it goes wrong. Why would NJ do that? NY and NJ can’t even agree on building another tunnel, a year round benefit to everyone…
Though I am a New Yorker and avid F1 fan, the reason why it’s not gonna happen is because F1 needs NYC more than NYC needs F1. And F1 needs a successful driver in a top three car more than another American track to make notable market penetration here.
Why would New Jersey pay for everyone to party in the Big Apple? Which, as I understand it, is in New York. The answer is, they wouldn’t. And that’s been the fundamental issue from the very beginning; not likely to change.
It is more complicated than that.
So why isn’t India slotted into the gap?
Basically because nobody really wants to go there. Too much hassle, too much paperwork.
Because they (India) said they can’t do it; it’s too soon after the last race.
To the grumbling Aussies, I am coming from the UK to Sydney and points north but will make a southern detour to see the race. If it wasn’t on I wouldn’t be bothering with Melbourne.
Joe, is there any fluidity in the Melbourne date, March 16, for 2014 or can we take it that it is now fixed?
It looks fixed to me, but you never know.
I’m sorry to hear about NJ. The track layout looked pretty like a pretty good layout for a street race. That would of been an easy race for me to attend, given that my daughter-in-law lives just across the Hudson. It’s funny that the Business Analyst and Taxpayer down in OZ picks on Formula One, given the vast amounts of money most of the first world governments are capable spending. Look at what the Russians are spending in Sochi. F-1 seems an afterthought.
Last race of the year?
In the UK, folks who do not buy Sky depend on the BBC for F1 coverage. The BBC delivers some decent events in real time, but not all. This season the BBC will have live coverage of the Brazilian GP, last race.
The race in 2013 will be good, because it is in Brazil with a bonkers crowd. The drivers’ championship is over, but the one for constructors continues — for points. As we all know from “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue”, points mean prizes. And Brazil offers a challenging circuit (ie opportunities for drivers to make hard mistakes). Brazil cannot promise a great race, but it should be interesting.
Similarly, the modern F1 calendar requires a difficult start to the season — or something that looks good on telly.
Thus the F1 season is constrained. F1 performance must be attractive at the end and start. It must look like a sport. And the F1 firms are contracted in between to attend some boring events (often in gorgeous places).
The F1 calendar tries to fit around cultural and sporting events in host countries. F1 and MotoGP avoid collision, which makes sense. F1 calendar does not always consider weather at the host.
For donkey’s years, the British GP was conducted on a Saturday owing to religious considerations and tradition. Then they held race day on a Sunday.
Social behaviour changes. F1 is not always quick to accommodate change.
Am I the only one who thinks this all comes over as a bit amateurish? These provisional F1 calendars nowadays seems to be used by Bernie for political and money making games, rather than telling people what the actual calendar is going to be. It seems every year now we go through multiple amended calendars, sometimes not even knowing months or weeks before an event, if a race will actually happen or not. I don’t know if this is just due to every bit of information being available on the internet nowadays (i.e. information we used to not get in the past), but I feel once a calendar has been published, it should be set in stone, unless there are some major unforeseen circumstances. Has it always been like this Joe?
On this new version of the draft Calender, is Malaysia still back to back with Australia or is there a break in between as indicated in the very first draft issued by the FIA?
Thanks
There is a gap
Hey “Business analyst and taxpayer”, (further I.D. not forthcoming)
So the locals confidently tell you time’s up for the Albert Park GP, eh?
Have you included the 50,000+ locals, including me, who actually show up at the track each year in that?
Just wondering, mate…
J.
Joe, How solid do you think the dates for the Chinese GP are? Any tips for a beginner to that circuit?
Go by train.
Take lots of reading material for the three week journey.
http://www.wikihow.com/Travel-from-London-to-Beijing-by-Train
If Korea, Mexico and NJ go I think India should replace Korea on the 2014 calendar and then stay as round 5 in 2015. No new additions should be added for 2014 if India makes it 20 rounds but they should give other countries more chances in 2015. They should make the teams agree to a 22 race shedule (as it is possible) that is in a more geographical order – meaning cheaper travel costs and if any more races want to be added alternate it with a less liked circuit, i.e. Thailand could alternate with China or Singapore and Argentina could alternate with Russia etc. Finally, I believe it is pointless ending the season in Abu Dhabi, it should end in Brazil or Japan.