Notebook from an Argentine steak house

Nagyvásárcsarnok is a bit of a mouthful, but for some of the eastern European countries additional syllables are deemed essential to give a word the splendour it deserves – and Nagyvásárcsarnok is a splendid thing. I thought it might have been an old station from the Austro-Hungarian imperial days, but it seems that this imposing edifice has always been the central market hall in Budapest. It is a neogothic heavyweight, with a steel roof of which Gustav Eiffel or Isambard Kingdom Brunel would have approved. And below, in the hustle and bustle, one can find all the delights of Hungarian living: duck liver, paprika, Túró Rudi pastries, spices and candies and the local wines and spirits, plus, of course, the most colourful fruit and vegetables, including vast peppers and monster pickles that would scare small children. These days it is a big tourist attraction and, as I was being a tourist for a few hours, I dropped in to take a look.

One eats in odd places when one travels. I cannot imagine going from city to city and always being on the lookout for the best British restaurant (not that Britain ever won gold in the epicurean Olympics), but many of the different nationalities in F1 like to eat their own food.  I guess it gives you some comfort in a foreign field. I went to some fancy Italian place on Friday and found a table filled with happy eaters from the Italian media/PR world, merrily nibbling on truffle-encrusted ravioli and sipping pink Prosecco. There wasn't really enough food to feed a supermodel but the bill would, no doubt, have been eye-poppingly impressive. Usually I like to eat local food, although I have had some fairly unpleasant experiences in China and Korea as a result. Hungarian food is great, if you like fruit soups, goose liver and goulash (which I do). There is also fogas, a fish that comes only from Lake Balaton, although it bears a passing resemblance to the perch you get if you dip your fishing rod into Lake Geneva.

Nonetheless on Monday night I didn't have the energy to walk very far from the hotel and my body was telling me that steak and spinach was required, which means that I am lacking protein and need a boost of iron. I had spotted the Argentine steak house while returning from Nagyvásárcsarnok and gave it a try.

The horseradish and tomato sauce that came with a few anaemic prawns wouldn't have frighten St Elmo's Steakhouse in Indianapolis, but it had some zing and I guess that this would have pleased the clientele, who included a lot of Americans. I could hear their voices around me. And let's face it, not many nations wear teeshirts that proclaim "Sometimes I drink water" or "Drinking helps". The tables were largely peopled by men, but there were one or two beefy women as well. Miss Hungary was not spotted. The steak was terrific and properly cooked and it reminded me of the old days when F1 used to go to Buenos Aires (before the corruption payments outweighed the budgets available). In those days we used to visit places called La Estancia and La Mosca Blanca – and they were exceptional. The good thing about Argentine restaurants in Budapest is that one can escape from the inevitable gipsy bands, who tend to plague the local eateries.

Monday had been a quiet day after a weekend of never-ending deadlines and pizza in the hotel room on Saturday night, as I put the magazine together. By Monday afternoon, however, I had cleared the decks, in preparation for the summer break. I should have flown home on Monday, but when they say that a day can make a big difference, they were not kidding, at least not in relation to airline ticket prices from Budapest to Paris.

So I stayed and I was glad I did. The recent weeks have been quite a slog, but Hungary is the one and only race in Europe to which I fly (I guess I should include Sochi as Europe, but I don't) and it confirmed my belief that life is too short to fly around Europe in the summer months.

At the circuit the weariness that we all feel was highlighted by the fact that people are also starting to get ill. Paul di Resta went to Budapest to commentate, standing in for the unwell Martin Brundle, but then he found himself propelled into one of the Williamses when Felipe Massa also went down with a lurgy. This meant that Anthony Davidson got to be the big cheese commentator on SkyTV, although I am told that not a lot of people actually watch the show, at least not compared to what used to be the case.

The folk at Liberty Media have already made it clear that they are not overly keen on pay-TV, unless it is in markets which are used to the idea and accept it. Most of Europe does not – and F1's viewing figures have suffered because of the decision to go to pay-TV in recent years. F1 is a sport that needs the profile to draw in new fans and to keep sponsors happy. Pay-TV does a terrible job at that. Over in Germany, so they say, the negotiations are continuing over the next big contract. RTL is bidding and Sky is in the mix as well, but there is also the free-to-air ARD, a public channel, which is hoping to get a deal. ARD is hoping to come up with some clever deal which will cover not only F1 but also the Olympic Games for 2018 and 2024. Those rights are held by the Discovery Channel and ARD wants a sublicence. Discovery bought the European rights for the Olympics from 2018 to 2024, a deal which includes the two summer Games In Tokyo in 2020 and Paris in 2024 and the Winter Games in Pyeongchang (South Korea) and Beijing (China) in 2018 and 2022. Discovery is owned by one of the branches of the Liberty empire and so a deal could happen in Germany. The Olympic Games may also play a role in deciding future F1 races in the United States.

Los Angeles has just accepted a deal to stage the 2028 Olympic Games, which means that there is 10 years to wait. The city is keen to build up its international image under youthful and ambitious mayor Eric Garcetti, who was recently re-elected and will be in power until at least 2023. Garcetti's Events people are believed to be looking at the idea of a Grand Prix in LA and with a 10 year gap before the Games, there might be impetus for a deal. What is now clear is that Long Beach City Council is going to decide to stay with Indycars and so if F1 wants to be in California, it will need to be elsewhere. The folk in the F1 group refuse to say much on the subject, but it seems that the West Coast is really not a great priority for them at the moment because of the problems created by the nine hour time difference between California and Europe. This means that races would be aired live rather late in the evening and would be screened in the middle of the night in Asia. This is what McLaren might call sub-optimal and I believe that the focus for new F1 races is firmly on the East Coast, where the time zone problem is less intense. I am not a gambler by nature, but I reckon that Chase Carey must be looking at something in New York City, and perhaps even down Miami way. Liberty does like the idea of using stadiums, as happens in Mexico, but in New York the key point is to get a view of the city skyline and/or the Statue of Liberty.

It is worth noting, by the way, that Formula E spent a lot of time talking to LA about hosting a race at one of three venues: around the Staples Center, close to the downtown area, or at the nearby Dodgers Stadium to the north, or the  LA Coliseum to the south. In the end Formula E went to Long Beach but has since dropped off that calendar, as Formula E found a place to race in Brooklyn. This is not suitable for F1, but there are quite a few potential sites that could work, particularly if Liberty does its own promotion, which seems the likely way forward.

Some people think that F1 cannot get into big cities these days but they obviously forgot to tell the people in Singapore. The word from there is that the Singapore Grand Prix will continue in the future, with a deal having been struck for the race to continue. It is logical to suggest that the deal will be announced when F1 is in town in September and the word is that the Singapore government will be taking a bigger role.

There is a fair bit of rumouring in F1 circles at the moment, although the chuntering of discord around the halo has drowned out the silly season a little. I am hearing that a deal has basically been agreed for the shape of the engines from 2012 onwards and that these will be modified versions of the current hybrids, with a number of key modifications to bring down the costs, in order to attract new players. Cost is the key factor in getting more manufacturers into F1 and it makes sense to bring in as many reductions as possible. The word is that the 2021 engines will feature twin turbos and a less stringent fuel-flow rate. The expensive and complicated MGU-Hs will disappear but the sport will retain some of its technology credibility by increasing the amount of KERS, although the MGU-K systems are likely to be standardised to keep costs down. Work is going on to ensure that the engines are also noisier and thus sexier. One can only hope that by then the halos will have turned into something nicer-looking.

There is a big push going on to have independent engine manufacturers as well, so that the likes of Cosworth and Ilmor can be involved. However, I am hearing that this may come about by different means with joint ventures involving teams, manufacturers and engine companies. Joint R&D is quite normal in the automobile world, so watch out for something similar. I can see McLaren, Red Bull, Aston Martin and Cosworth all getting together to create engines that will then appear with different badging. McLaren, for example, could use McLaren V6s, Red Bull could use Aston Martin V6s and Cosworth V6s could be supplied to customer teams. The FIA and Liberty is keen on this idea as it will undermine the power of the big F1 engine manufacturers. Still, there is nothing to stop Ferrari doing the same sort of thing with Alfa Romeo, or someone else coming in with Ilmor. The key element is cost.

Elsewhere Sauber and Ferrari have agreed to stay together for another three years, although the Swiss team will get a 2018 version of the engine next year. Is that better than a Honda? Well, time will tell. Honda and McLaren looked half-decent in Hungary but the word continues to be that the divorce is coming and that Honda will move to become the engine supplier of Toro Rosso. This is a win-win-win situation for all concerned. Honda gets to stay in F1 with a lower profile than with McLaren, Toro Rosso gets a free engine deal for three years, which means that the team will save $60 million, and if the engines start getting to be very good Red Bull can simply flip the engines on to Red Bull Racing and so there will be a factory supplier for Milton Keynes again. All of this means that McLaren and Renault bosses have been canoodling behind the F1 bike sheds and will soon announce that they are going to be together for three years… Renault will get to have three top teams using their power units (even if one is badged as TAG Heuer – a purely financial deal because the name of the engine appears on screen whenever the car is seen).

On the driver front, it all still depends on Ferrari but we expect Vettel to sign and Kimi will probably stay too. There has been some talk of dropping Charles Leclerc into the second seat, but that is way too wild for anyone with a clue about what it takes to drive F1 these days. Ferrari would like to have Max Verstappen, but they cannot get him just yet, while I hear that Renault is upping the ante in its efforts to secure Esteban Ocon for its factory team. Force India would be happy to get the money to sell the contract and might even be convinced to take the other Mercedes youngster Pascal Wehrlein (if money comes with him as well). Pascal probably needs to move on from where he is because the chances are that Leclerc will end up at Sauber, with some Ferrari cash to help balance the books. Marcus Ericsson will remain because he is Swedish – and the team has a Swedish owner, who is hiding behind a Swiss private equity façade. And Fernando Alonso will almost certainly stay at McLaren, because there is no other gig in town and Fernando is not about to walk away from a McLaren with a Renault engine. That might even be a winning car… Elsewhere Michael Andretti is considering switching his Indycar team from Honda to Chevrolet engines and so if Fernando wants to go to Indy again, that might still be possible.

[Joe was eating at the Pampas Argentin Steakhouse, Vámház krt. 6]