As Formula 1 continues with its global expansion and, apparently, there is no shortage of cities wanting to pay up in order to host a Grand Prix, one needs to be very sceptical about many of the new projects that are mentioned. I have always been very leery of the Grand Prix of Rome because I cannot see Monza being dropped and while I think a street race would probably pull in bigger crowds – if the pricing was right – and such a move makes sense for the local authorities and business interests, I think that there is way too much red tape in Italy to get such a thing to happen. Street races in Italy are few and far between in the modern era. This is a shame because they are marvellous events if done well.
The idea that is now being peddled that there might be a race in Mallorca makes very little sense. The project would, of course, provide a major economic boost to the island, which is a favourite with German tourists. The rise of Sebastian Vettel will help to boost German interest in F1, which has waned somewhat since the Schumacher heyday, although there have been blips of interests caused by Michael’s comeback.
The problem, of course, is that Mallorca is an island and thus access to it is restricted. One cannot simply drive there, at least not without a five or six hour ferry journey. The population of the island is unlikely to sustain an event and thus it would have to kept alive with public money and there is always opposition to such things, at least in democratic countries. This process is being seen at the moment in Valencia, where the opposition politicians are making a great deal of fuss about the costs of F1, failing to take into account the fact that the race has improved the image of the city and appears to be attracting more people. It is only a small example, but the other day I recommended that someone I know travel there in order to see the Santiago Calatrava “palaces” as he was interested in new architecture. Without the Grand Prix I would not have known about Calatrava… This is how “snowballs” work. They start small and build up more and more rapidly…
The whole Mallorca idea is based on the concept that Valencia will get rid of its Grand Prix. I cannot see that happening. The city has (definitively) lost the America’s Cup to San Francisco and has made a sizeable investment in Grand Prix racing. The track needs to be improved to make overtaking possible but otherwise it has the makings of a good event – and crowds are beginning to come, moreso with Fernando Alonso at Ferrari. I have no doubt that Bernie Ecclestone will have supported the Mallorca idea when it was presented to him. It never hurts to have a few Plan Bs if things go amiss and, in any case, interest from new sources means that prices can be pushed up.
The other unlikely tale in recent days was the remark made by Williams CEO Adam Parr that Pastor Maldonado is not a pay driver. I simply do not understand what is achieved by such a remark, as no-one who knows anything about F1 is going to be taken in by the argument.
They say in racing that one can teach a fast driver to slow down a bit but you cannot make a slow driver fast. No-one is arguing that Maldonado is not quite quick, but he has also been pretty wild during his career, notably in the Renault World Series, from which he was banned for four races in 2005 for failing to slow down at the scene of an accident in Monaco and as a result he hit and injured a marshal.
His career in GP2 was pretty non-stellar until 2010. It began in 2007 with Trident Racing (11th), moved to Piquet Sports in 2008 (5th) and ART in 2009 (6th) and then in 2010 went back to the renamed Piquet Sports (now known as Rapax) to win the title. It was his fourth season in the formula and his chief opponents: Sergio Perez, Jules Bianchi, Dani Clos, Sam Bird and Oliver Turvey were all considerably less experienced. Perez was in his second season in the formula; Bianchi, Clos, Bird and Turvey were all rookies.
However, the most telling thing in all of this was that in 2009 he was team-mate to Nico Hulkenberg and was trounced by the less experienced German. The fact that the Williams team has dumped Hulkenberg to create a space for Maldonado is thus not logical at all, based on all normal criteria used in F1. Hulkenberg would have been a much better bet in 2011 after a full season of gaining experience alongside Rubens Barrichello. Dropping him means that Williams has thrown away that investment and gone back to square one with a new rookie. Perhaps Hulkenberg still has some things to learn, but he clearly has talent.
The only sensible conclusion, therefore, is that the money that will flow into the team from PDVSA, the Venezuelan national oil company, is the only reason that Maldonado will be alongside Barrichello. Such a move makes no sense at all, unless one considers the finance involved – and there is no point in pretending otherwise. It is possible that Maldonado will develop as men like Niki Lauda or Elio de Angelis did and eventually he may be able to shrug off the pay-driver tag, but there is little certainty that this will happen.
joeblogsf1 
Incredible that Adam Parr made those comments? Yes – the man has consistently parroted out “We are in very rude health commercially” as we watch endless sponsors disappearing, not being replaced, and on the back of all of that, a clear statement from Sir Frank Williams confirming that a) he had to sell his plane to fund wind tunnel work and b) as a result, cannot attend the majority of fly-away races because of the chartering costs of ANOther aircraft…
Rude health? Rude something!
Spot on Joe – if Maldonado is not a “pay driver” then they must surely have a different name for that at Williams, like “commercially attractive driver” or “Venezuelan sponsor magnet”. Talent alone have not landed him in F1, that has been proven by the number of seasons he was stuck in GP2 waiting for a chance to land a top drive – GP2 seasons which were also maintained by his “commercially attractive” prospects I must add.
Mallorca would please the anti-Tilke fan boys, as it’s being designed by Gabriel Palmer … Of course if it turned out not to be an overtakers paradise what would the anti-Tilke brigade do then 😉
Not totally convinced by the “F1 is good for Valencia” argument. It may have raised the city’s profile among non-Spanish F1 fans but it’s the third largest city in Spain and is right next to the Costa Blanca – not sure that the race adds a great deal of value in marketing terms against that backdrop. The Generalitat Valenciana is hopelessly bankrupt by all accounts and I doubt Bernie’s (exponentially rising) hosting fees have helped in that regard.
I went to the first two races and although there was hype in the local media surrounding the inaugural race and the odd poster in town, the locals weren’t particularly interested and unless you were in the port/harbour area of town (a couple of miles from the old town) you wouldn’t have known there was a race going on, apart from the odd blue or red cap scurrying around.
Another issue was that the first two races took place in the Spanish holiday season so a good proportion of local people were up in the mountains away from the heat, and so of course many shops and restaurants were shut. Plus the circuit was barely finished in time, leaving waste dumps and derelict buildings yards from the track (they’re still there in fact), although TV coverage managed to disguise this. It didn’t help that the first race turned out to be crap and Alonso crashed on the first lap.
I’m not sure what the official attendance figures have been like but I know all local people within a certain vicinity were handed free tickets and they queuing up to sell them for next to nothing on race day. I picked my grandstand tickets up for around 20 or 30 Euros, about 20% of face value.
I’d imagine the third race was better attended with it being earlier in the year and with Alonso being in contention again, although with Spain’s economy teetering on the brink I’m not optimistic about the future of the event. A ‘Balearic Grand Prix’ is a ridiculous idea though – if Valencia is a poor man’s Monaco, what would it make Mallorca?
Maybe he was trying to say that he is not a pay-driver in the old way, as the term is often connected with drivers like Delatraz or Lavaggi. Otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense.
By the way, a minor mistake in the article: Dani Clos was also in his second GP2 season, not a rookie.
Joe,
Very well put. Mr. Parr can not pretend that we are going to believe him. It must be a april’s foul Joke.
Best.
Jayme Brito
Thanks for the review, right on! Your assessment of anything thing F1 is virtually all I bother to read any more. So much of other is stuff is posing a question in order to create an unwarranted or unnecessary issue, It used to be called called hyper boil.
Joe
Please enlighten this ignorant Antipodean, where is Mallorca?
Cheers
Markr
mark ryan,
Mallorca is one of the Balearic Islands, an archipelago located in the western Mediterranean, about 200km south of Barcelona and a similar distance to the east of Valencia. The four largest islands are Mallorca (sometimes called Majorca by English-speakers), Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The islands are an autonomous community belonging to Spain.
I see your point about the effects F1 can have in raising a city’s profile – even if not in visitors to the race but in many other ways. However, I do think the costs of a modern F1 GP are just too high in relation to possible benefits in most cases. Not in all cases – I imagine Singapore has really done well profile wise out of its GP.
I imagine for Valencia its currently borderline at best. It doesn’t help when the place gets torn apart by everyone. Personally I still think there is some potential in that venue if they swap things round a bit, and I really like the industrial/beach/historic/modern combination of enviroments it offers but thats just me…
I have to say I really doubt Mallorca can use F1 for any profile raising for the island. There’s no infrastructure to get in a decent crowd, plus I don’t think the island would benefit in a wider sense from an association with F1.
Joe: Off topic. Thanks for your suggested read of Tremayne’s book about Djochen Rindt! (note: always put the exclamation after Rindt!) as my other half bought it for me for Christmas. The Autobiography is a staggering nostalgia trip for this sixty-plus F1 fan. Worth £40 for the photos and Hayhoe database alone. Thankyou.
Sorry. Jochen, NOT Djochen!
I can see that Patrick Head and Frank Williams would like to hire the best person for the job but have to be pracical under the circumstances.
As a result I guess Adam Parr is the best CEO Williams can afford.
I was very surprised to see the comments made by Parr in F1 Racing Magazine, in particular the strength of the language he used. Parr was very vociferous in his dismissal of the idea of Maldonado being a pay driver and seemed to take the very suggestion as a personal insult! His attitude seemed to be that it was obvious that Hulkenberg was being replaced for performance reasons and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise obviously knows nothing about F1! This bothers me for two reasons;
1, it is clearly not true, and coming from the famously straight talking Williams organisation makes the lie even harder to swallow.
2, it is a massive insult to Nico, I think he did a great job last year and for an F1 team to effectively say that he has been sacked for not being good enough is outrageous in my view.
If Williams don’t want to be seen to be taking a pay driver then they shouldn’t have taken one, financial pressures affect every team (except one) at some point, and Williams and Parr should just have told the truth rather than try to damage the carreer of a young driver who provided them with their first pole position since 2005 simply to hide their embarrassment.
Well would you expect Parr to say “yes, of course Pastor is useless but we need the cash”? It might be more honest, but it’s not going to keep Maldonado, or his sponsors, or other potential sponsors happy, is it? Remember not everyone in the media is an F1 expert – he’s never going to say “haha, yes, our new driver is pants” but depending on the journalist and the publication he’ll give a different answer won’t he?
I agree that Hulkenberg deserved to stay and there are plenty of other drivers outside F1 who on talent and record deserve the seat more than Maldonado but its not fair that the media bang on about it. He’s far from the worst-qualified driver to enter F1 (he’s not been brilliant but equally he’s not terrible either), and if you look at the records of drivers like Webber, Massa, Kobayashi and co then you realise that a patchy record doesn’t mean he can’t add something to F1. Lets not write him off before he’s taken part in a race – I think he might surprise some!
It is worrying though that Williams need his money. Clearly they are not in such rude health as Parr would have had us believe – fairly obviously if you look at the list of sponsors departing over the past few seasons.
Hopefully the momentum gained last season will carry into 2011 and Rubens can get the car back to the front and maybe some cash will be freed up to bring Hulkenberg back in the future.
I was giggling at the Mallorca thing,
until I read Paul Pearce’s comment.
Paul, I remember the same.
Please Lord, do not let FW go down, that would hurt us all.
About “Rude something”: maybe the PDVSA thing is classic FW dealing, the boot’s on William’s foot, not Chavez’s.
Echoing another of Joes articles:
(sucks teeth)
“Williams BMW”
“BMW Sauber, BMW, oh, who are we called? Ahh, yes, Sauber, phew!”
“BMW *Oracle* Racing”
I spot a deep pocketed, and appropriately lunatic, sponsor who ought to be there.
Clearly FW knows how to deal with the characters, so, why not?
. . .
The idea of Williams going funny upsets me enough that I simply have to link the classic Mallorca Heineken commercial:
Feeling a bit better now 🙂
all best,
– john
I call him Pastor Milkadonado, in honor of his fellow Venezuelan oil sponsored compatriot in Indycar racing.
I don’t think any of Parr’s defences are valid. He says Mandolado won GP2, well so what? So did Hulkenberg. Plus the fact that Hulk won fair and square over Mandolado IN THE SAME TEAM by a factor of nearly three times as many points AND has a year’s experience of F1 AND a pole position under his belt.
But then, isn’t Parr a qualified barrister? Isn’t it not that long ago that another qualified barrister in F1 found himself in the news and adopted the “best defence is attack” stance? All too similar. As Mosley would have been well advised to do, Parr should have just maintained a dignified silence.
It was obvious Williams badly needed money that they would drop Hulkenberg for Maldonado – particularly after the former scored pole position in Brazil. I also wonder what the whole story is with Wili Weber demanding more money from the team during their contract extension talks. Any insight to provide regarding those stories?
How about a pay CEO? Why pay Parr money to run this failing team, as he does? Surely, Venezuela has plenty of corrupt politicians with dellusions of grandure of the same magnitude as their leader. At least they would be paying for their lack of talent (just like their new driver).
What a sad story Williams F1 turned out to be…
of course bernie is keen on mallorca, he’s keen on any new country coming on board as this means he can squeeze more money out of existing races that want to hold their position. he was delighted that donnington came along as he could use that as a stick with which to beat silverstone into making a multi-year deal with him – he had no intention of going to donnington (not that he cares where the races are held) or even the state that the aborted effort would leave the circuit in, his responsibility is to CVC and his pension fund.
as for williams, as you say it’s fairly clear that if a driver were to be chosen on talent and potential for 2011, the hulk would win hands down. however, where is the sense in this team, who aren’t going to challenge the top 3 during the upcoming year, to miss out on his money with which they can develop the car using Rubens’ experience. all they need is just another bum in a seat, and given that their car will not be competitive it’s more important he comes with a fat wallet rather than a little more speed. all those moaning about how williams are falling from grace compared to where they were should understand that in the current climate this is the only sensible way to get back to where they want to be.
If I was one of maldonado’s backers I’d be delighted to read this.
I’d hang onto my money as the payment deadlines passed, safe in the knowledge that my protege would keep his seat at Williams on merit alone.
Then eventually I’d smell the coffee and pay up.
GP2 form isn’t really a good barometer of F1 potential.
Look at Kobayashi compared to Piquet Jr.
Parr’s comments show what a joke Williams have become..promising this, promising that and not delivering since the great JPM left them on high with his win in Brazil 04!
I can understand why people like Joe who have been to a race at Valencia can find things about the city that make them want to return and investigate and spend money in the area.
For those of us who watch the race on TV who are presumably the target audience there is no such enticement to visit. Why would anyone choose to visit on the basis of seeing a soporific race round a dockyard industrial estate?
There is aboslutely nothing of Valencia that is shown on TV over a GP weekend that could possibly spark an interest in visiting or holidaying in that area. I cannot imagine why Valencia is paying to show the world a complete disaster of a race track in a dockyard. Frankly I am surprised Bernie ever agreed to have the race in that location when Valencia has some stunning backdrops to offer.
The only thing F1 has ever done that would encourage me to visit Valencia were the McLaren car launches there before there was a GP. That showed a far more appealing part of the city.
Are you kidding me about Pastor not having any success until this year in GP2!?? Give me a break! He won Monaco in 2007, was second at Monaco in 2008, won Monaco in 2009 and was second there this year. How in the heck is that not good results? I’ve never missed a GP2 race and I can honestly say the guy is fast. Why would someone compare him to Milka in Indy Cars? She has never done anything! Anybody who follows his lower career knows the guy is fast as hell, he might crash but at least he wins. It really annoys me that you put the thought in your readers mind that Pastor isn’t a worthy driver. I bet my life savings that he scores more points than Hulk scored this past season.
Chris,
There is really no point in being annoyed. I said Maldonado was quick, and I am not saying he did not win a few races along the way, nor was there any comparison with Milka Duno. HOWEVER, he has long been inconsistent and it may be an inconvenient fact but there is no getting away from the fact that he was trounced by the GP2 rookie Hulkenberg when they raced side by side as ART team-mates in 2009. Now there may be good reasons for that but it was a very thorough drubbing for a man who at that point had two seasons of GP2 experience. (Sorry, one and two-thirds because he broke some part of himself in a training accident and missed part of the first season if my memory serves me correctly). I would be very careful with your life savings if I were you. What happens if Sauber, Force India and Lotus all make more progress over the winter than Williams? They will not be many points about…
Well Joe even better arguments about performance doesn’t make you stop claiming illogically and with no evidence to back it up that Luizzi is good so why should Maldonado not be awesome no matter the facts?
Also Parr was not lying he just wasn’t saying the full truth. You twisted his opinion a little there. What he is saying is that if they thought Maldonado was lousy they wouldn’t have hired him even if he had the money. Now they accepted his money because they also thought that he wasn’t bad so it seemed like a better offer than Hulkenberg who even if they liked as a driver he only had that, while Maldonado is two in one.
So did money payed any role? Yes they did, but not the full role in the decision.
Besides the Hulk is over-hyped as hell. Anyone with any F1 knowledge knows that considering the conditions, that poll in Brazil doesn’t mean shit no matter how excited the fans get about it. Also considering how awesome he was supposed to be, he hardly responded to the hype. He was lousy in many races this year. Kobayashi seemed a lot worse in GP2 but was a lot better in F1 than Hulk was.
The truth is he didn’t really had a good year and his performance would certainly made a boss to fire him if he was anything other than a first year rookie. The only thing that makes him seem worthy of keeping to me, was that he showed some potential of becoming a lot better in future races by matching Barichello or even go a little faster than him on quite a few occasions.
But if that potential would realize is still an unknown risk. So Williams just chose the other risk that at least has money with it.
Chris
If Pastor Maldonado puts a Williams on pole next season I will eat my life savings….
Steven Roy,
good point, about who the audience is.
But as a distraction from that, I’m going to use F1 as an excuse to travel again, after a big stint at the desk. I’ll likely spend a good deal more locally than the price of the weekend race ticket. Multiply that by a few people who wouldn’t normally go near a race. And I’m not rich.
I have a pal who changed the legal landscape of travel directories, in the 50s. Now we have the internet, and so virtual tourism gives us all a global perspective which is good. Maybe it just makes us take everything too much for granted. Cheap flights, (Respect due to Freddie) and now you can see pictures better than you likely will see if you go there, at a click. Since I’m not at leisure, I merely want an excuse. That sort of thing can be contagious.
Anyhow, when you do go to a race, are you looking at the track, or the telly / diamond screen?
Or, if it’s a lousy race, is that a reason to disengage with your human neighbors of the weekend?
Anyhow, not saying Valencia is a classic track, just saying I’m yet to make my own opinions.
– john
Solo
I have a bit of F1 knowledge and think the Brazil pole was an incredible bit of driving from a rookie. Yes Williams had a good technique for heating the tyres but Nico still had to go out there and nail every braking zone apex and exit without making a mistake. He did this twice delivering two laps that would have been good enough for pole and going much faster than his much more experienced team mate in his own back yard, This was an exceptional performance by a very talented young driver who destroyed Maldonado in GP2, and with a years F1 experience under his belt would be better still.
The problem I and many others had with Parr’s comments was the tone they were delivered in. Parr said that Maldonado was hired purely for performance reasons and angrily dismissed the idea of him being a pay driver. Nobody believes this to be true including people who work in F1 and have much much more F1 knowledge than you or me.
Just a further slight on the mans credibility. A sad era for a team with such great heritage and potential.
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