Green Notebook from Hollywood

Given that we will soon be off on a triple-header in Europe, after Baku I went home for 36 hours, planning on a late arrival in Miami. It may not seem much, but any time at home at the moment is precious. This meant a very early start on Thursday, at the kind of hour when one wonders whether those on the roads have just got up, or are just going  home to bed. In fact, for the first 15 km of my trip through rural France I encountered no humans at all. At that time of night, the forest belongs to the animals and I found myself dodging stoats and weasels, rabbits, hares, rats and badgers. The wild boar and deer, the least sociable of my neighbours, were not to be found, but I laughed at the absurdity of my habitual use of indicators at junctions at such an hour, as the critters were too busy running way to care about them – and the only policemen about were of the sleeping variety, laid on the roads, making things go bump in the night in the villages en route.

When one walks in the woods where I live, ivy is the big thing but I’ve always found it rather odd that there are Hollywoods aplenty in this world, but rarely does one encounter an Ivywood.

These days, of course, the one thing one rarely finds in places called Hollywood is any holly because someone with a chainsaw has come along and massacred it all, to clear the land so more condominiums can be built.

Hollywood in Florida, where I arrived 18 hours after leaving home, probably never had any holly. At the start of the 1900s this was a wilderness of pine trees and swamps. The first farm was only established in 1910 on what was referred to as “tomato land”.  Ten years later a real estate developer from Indianapolis by the name of Joseph Young arrived and began buying land behind the Atlantic beaches. Hollywood in California was already famous by then and Young decided to cash in on its fame and so created “Hollywood by the Sea”.

Later he planned another venture to be called Hollywood-In-The-Hills, in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, but he dropped dead at 51 before that project began. Hollywood by the Sea, however, began to grow in the late 1940s when northern “snowbirds” began buying houses in Florida, so they could avoid the cold winters.

We were staying at the beach, which sounds impossibly glamorous, but the apartment we rented faced inland, so the most glamorous thing was the address: South Ocean Drive. I never saw any glittering ocean and bronzed bodies were notably absent in the parking lot. Such is the world of F1… 

We travel the world and rush to work early because there is nothing productive if one is in a traffic jam. We stay until the sun goes down and then repeat the process each day until it is time to go home again. On Monday, on the way to the airport, we drove south a way but barely saw a beach, as these are all hidden behind tower blocks that run along the waterfront, all the way to downtown Miami.

To be fair, the stay in Florida did involve crossing paths with a number of Hollywood stars, Tom Cruise and Vin Diesel being the most famous, although the paddock was awash with hundreds of people who are (apparently) famous for being famous. I cannot say that I recognised many of the influencers, rappers, reality TV types and weather girls who were having their 15 minutes of Warholian fame and I doubt that many will ever get on the radar in rural France. Vin Diesel must struggle because his name loses its charm in translation: wine and “gazole” being a decidedly odd – and rather poisonous – mixture.

The Paddock in Miami reminded me of a time, many years ago, when we used to go racing in Adelaide where there was a slightly wonderful event which involved the small group of international F1 media having a sit down dinner with the folk taking part in the celebrity race at each Australian Grand Prix. It was rather an awkward affair because there was always a moment when feathers were ruffled when one asked: “And what are you famous for?” because being a star in Wattle Flats or Broken Hill does not make you big on the global stage.

Still, people seem to like photos of celebrities and so when I spotted Tom cruising through the throng on the grid I whipped out my iPhone to ensure we had a pic for GP+. I’m not a very good photographer, but this one worked out well because not only was the said celebrity in focus, but by pure chance he was looking at me and it looked like he was saying hello and waving, which assuredly he was not.

Some F1 folk get excited about fist-bumping celebrities and getting selfies but that’s really not my thing. Occasionally I’ll ask Guenther for a selfie, just to wind him up. He spends half of his life grinning into cellphones in his vulpine way to keep gushing fans and VIPs happy. When I ask he usually responds with some of his celebrated South Tyrolean cursing.

The Hard Rock Stadium looked much the same as it had appeared 12 months ago, but everything else seemed very different with the Miami Dolphins obviously keen to get things right. There was a new track surface (and a law suit going on about the original) and a completely different use of the space to house F1.

We were all lost for the first day, wandering around the labyrinth below the stadium’s 65,000 seats. This includes entire road networks with thousands of nooks and crannies, which made it quite difficult to find F1 people if they had secreted themselves away from the main paddock area, which was on the playing field. The Dolphins had sold some of the seats up above so that fans could gaze down on F1’s inner sanctum and scream whenever they saw someone famous.

The only thing was that the playing field was made not from old-fashioned grass but rather from synthetic green fibres. So if you have ever wondered why some NFL players seem to have weird hairstyles it is probably because of the friction that means everyone was wandering around charged with static electricity and there were sparks flying if one shook hands or touched the metallic fences around the hospitality units. It also meant that the F1 swipe gates were misbehaving quite a lot…

There were billionaires aplenty wandering about wondering if they should try to buy a racing team and others who wore daft clothing because they wanted to be on TV. It was the promised land for this nation of happy, chatty people with good teeth.

The talk was of F1’s growth and opportunities, and also about whether or not F1 should add more teams. On paper it is crazy to even consider not accepting a bid involving General Motors. It is exactly what Liberty Media should want and it would no doubt lead to American drivers as well. Andretti is a solid racing brand. So why the reticence? The only thing that seems to explain it is that while Cadillac and Andretti are obviously good for F1 in the long term, the primary concern in the short term is to get a new Concorde Agreement across the line. Adding new teams is not going help that dynamic. Liberty is keen to see a deal done swiftly and smoothly, so as not to spook investors. Each negotiation is disruptive because all parties traditionally want more from the deal and so adding new teams would probably make it less easy.

The danger in this is that keeping out General Motors would lead to all manner of implications (not just in terms of bad publicity but also because of legal matters that could result). Thus, the best that everyone can hope for is a strong package from Andretti and GM (including an engine of its own) as quickly as possible. If that is in place, then there is not really a problem apart from the other teams complaining – although they can probably be bought off with the promise of a smaller slice of a bigger pie, rather than a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Having a bigger American presence can only help the sport grow, but having more teams will lower the value of each individual “franchise”. For me, this is the issue and it makes no sense to keep Andretti out – if the bid is solid enough. I get the impression that Andretti understands that it must be a perfect bid and will make sure it is…

In the meantime, F1 continues to add more cash with every quarter, the Q1 figures for 2023 having added $21 million compared to last year, which is six percent up.

One thing that is growing faster than revenues at the moment is the value of the teams. There is very little equity available because everyone is holding on to what they have. Those who have sold of late are going to rue those decisions. Sauber, for example, probably sold to Audi too early, even if the owner will keep 25 percent after letting go of control.

For now, the focus is on Alpine. The announcement of a partnership deal between Alpine and AutoNation in Miami was not quite as rumours had suggested. That was a clever partnership to market Alpine road cars in the US market, but it is now clear that there is a parallel deal to sell at last 25 percent of the team to an investor. That deal is still in the works and no-one is saying who is involved. Renault boss Luca de Meo and Alpine boss Laurent Rossi were both in Florida at the weekend and confirmed the stories, but were not willing to reveal the name of the possible buyer until the deal is finalised. De Meo did say that the interested party was a US sports and media investment group, but there are dozens of them around.

From what I hear the deal will value Alpine at around $850 million which is good news for everyone. It pushes up the value of all the teams, it gives Alpine some more money to invest and improve the performance and it gives Renault some more asset value to load into the numbers. The problem for the team is that it has not been performing at a level that the bosses want and Rossi made it clear that he wants results or heads will roll. But heads may not roll just yet because Rossi has basically said “fix it!” and so those in charge have some time to sort it out. There are already rumours about potential replacements, but Alpine has a particular problem as a couple of the best candidates were dropped from the team and are unlikely to be called back. This means that the pool of candidates is pretty small. The name that I have heard whispered is Eric Boullier, who ran Enstone with some success some years ago before the team went downhill because the then owners could not find money and Eric went to McLaren, where he was caught in the crossfire of various warring groups.

There are whispers too that McLaren might have some more reshuffles soon if things do not improve, as the shareholders are not happy with the way things are going. Rumours are rumours, so we will have to wait to see what actually happens…

Another whisper that is growing stronger is that somehow Aston Martin is going to do a deal with Honda for engines in 2026. This is a strange idea but one that makes sense for both parties. Honda cannot find another suitable partner in F1 and Aston Martin cannot afford to build its own engines, as the team/car company is costing enough already… Aston Martin needs to stop being a customer if it is going to be truly successful in the future. How can it work? Who knows? Honda created the mess it finds itself because of a change of management some years back. That management has since been booted out, but the decisions made cannot all be fixed. If you smash an expensive vase, you can only hope to cobble together the bits.

It is hard to imagine that we would see a car called an Aston Martin Honda, as the brand images are not at all aligned. Honda could acquire the whole thing at some point (as Lawrence Stroll will probably want to sell once his son’s racing career is over) but Honda is not going to want to do business with Fernando Alonso. However by 2026 Alonso will be 44 and Lance Stroll will have had nine seasons of F1 and if he has not won anything by then, father and son will probably need to reassess their dreams and ambitions, as all of this activity is affecting the bank balance. If they sell it all, they will probably make more money than they have spent – and that will mean that on paper it is a success rather than a failure. On paper. The other option is for Aston Martin to simply pay Honda to badge its power units, in much the same way as TAG did with Porsche back in the 1980s. Everyone will know it is a Honda engine even if it says Aston Martin on the cam covers and Honda will be able to train its engineers at someone else’s expense…

The other gossip at the moment relates to races and the 2024 calendar. The latest word is that the Japanese Grand Prix will move to April and be twinned with China, following the Australian GP in mid-March. There are still discussions going on about where the season will start, but it will be in the Middle East. The complexity is caused by the timing of Ramadan, the Muslim month of reflection into which F1 cars do not really fit.

The South African Grand Prix is being discussed again following a new project that involves a US investment firm called Group 777. This seems to be willing to fund an event at Kyalami. Obviously the South Africans want to grasp the opportunity if only to stop another African country getting it, as we are unlikely to see two African races on the calendar. But this would need support from the government (not necessarily financial) and that may not be easy. The country has other priorities which make state aid for an F1 race problematic as was seen recently when the country’s tourism authority tried to sponsor the British Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur – with a three-year $52.4 million sleeve deal – which had to be ended because of heavy criticism. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is a racing fan, and a great believer that F1 could help his country but he is a busy man having to deal with problems with electricity, water, roads, sewerage, education and health, not to mention rampant unemployment and crime. And he is also having to deal with opposition within his own party. Oh, and there is an election in 2024 as well… A Grand Prix does make a lot of sense for South Africa as the tourism industry needs to be rebuilt – it is operating at about 30 percent of what it was before COVID – but Ramaphosa will need to be a world-class juggler if he is going to keep all of these balls in the air. The plans in Rwanda, such as they are, are not very advanced, but in that case, the government is willing to fund the idea.

Government contracts are what Liberty Media wants more than anything and countries that cannot or will not stump up the cash are unlikely to win a place on the calendar, unless Liberty decides to promote a race themselves and chooses the venue that it thinks will work. They want to see if that idea works in Las Vegas before committing to new projects. I did hear that Audi has been looking at how a German GP might be revived in the future, with the name Peter Bayer having been mentioned as working on the project, prior to being named CEO of Scuderia AlphaTauri. Bayer may be gone, but the project is probably still there somewhere…

F1 has been having some troubles in Korea as the authorities in Seoul were not convinced by the idea of shutting down the centre of the city for a car race. I am sure it could work in one of the riverside parks, but I am told that the current idea is to try something in the country’s second city of Busan. It is not the marshes of Mokpo, but it is not the ideal solution…

However, there is better news coming out of Spain where talk of a race in Madrid in 2027 is gathering steam. The word is that there is a great project to create a semi-permanent circuit as part of the development of new exhibition halls at the Institución Ferial de Madrid (IFEMA) facility, adjacent to the city’s Barajas Airport. This is where the F1 travelling exhibition recently opened, and is run by the city and the Madrid region. The current facilities have been a huge success and so IFEMA is expanding on to new land and into new market sectors, including sports and live concerts in addition to its trade shows, exhibitions and conventions.

Meanwhile I’m off back to the wild wood…