Is the Australian GP under threat?

I have my doubts over night racing in F1 - Surely when the race is already losing 30m plus a year the last thing they will want to do is tip in another 10-20m on lights.

I heard from a friend that they were giving away tickets on the weekend - havent heard it confirmed though. Maybe that's why Ron Walker (who i think is a tool) was confident there would be over 100k people there on Sunday.. Gotta make those stands look full!
 
thing is nothing will change untill ron is gone, since he has his head stuck high up bernies ass, "that it basically bernie wants a night race, well where losing money but why not yet lose even more people in the stands" since bernie was talking about european television well yer better profits for HIM, not for melbourne's money or lack off comes from ticket sales and "sponsors aka on track advertising", with a night race melbourne is digging a big hole for itself. /end rant
 
They could save the situation by including the race in the V8 Supercar calendar as a full championship round. V8s by day, F1s by night. Keep the crowd interest with plenty of side attractions and stuff.

I believe they are actually negotiating with the V8 Supercar holders about a return for next year because ticket sales were so poor over the weekend. One of the sticking points is the TV rights, but as CH10 had the rights to the V8s for many years while CH9 had the F1s, this surely should be much of a problem?
 
The thing I don't understand with this push for night-racing in the Asian races is that we hear all this noise from Mosley & the FIA about how F1 needs to be seen to be acting more environmentally responsible (which I don't agree with, but anyhoo), yet they want to race at night. And just how much power are the lights going to need? And where's the power going to come from? **

** I don't agree with that criticism btw, just pointing out the hypocrisy of it.
 
Honda wont agree to this!! You watch.
 
For what it is worth...

V8 Supercars on Seven are bigger than the Formula 1 Grand Prix

Release Date: 19/03/2007

Seven?s record-breaking coverage of the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide on 3-4 March ? the opening round of this year?s V8 Supercar Championships - has out-delivered Ten?s coverage of the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.

Seven?s Saturday coverage of the Clipsal 500 delivered 200,000 more viewers than Ten?s Saturday coverage of the Australian Grand Prix (a whopping 59% audience advantage to V8 Supercars). Seven?s Sunday coverage of the Clipsal 500 was up 95,000 viewers on the average audience of Ten?s entire Sunday coverage of the Australian Grand Prix, a 15% audience advantage.

Saturday: Clipsal 500 - 710,000 AGP 540,000

Sunday: Clipsal 500 - 615,000 AGP 340,000

Seven?s coverage of the Clipsal 500 delivered a 34% jump in audience on day 1 and a 46% jump in audience on day 2 vs last year?s coverage on Ten.
Click to expand...

Source
 
Channel 7 kicking 10 in the guts after 1 race hey. After all 10 has done for V8 Supercars, I'd like 7 not to have been gloating after one round. But that said,

Im staggered that more people watch Qualifying than the race. To make F1 look better, I'd like to see the worldwide viewing figures of both F1 and V8's.

The thing is though, that there arent many TRUE Formula 1 fanatics like us in Australia, they are mainly V8 bogans.

I reckon that the F1 viewing figures will be similar to the coming rounds of V8's and Clipsal, Bathurst, Sandown and Indy will be the main viewing events, V8 wise.
 
It's sad, the car culture in Australia. But I think it's mostly due to channel ten not have two programs listed, the pre race stuff and the actual race itself because not many people here care about Patrick Head or Nick Fry talking about the technical side of things and Stirling Moss and Niki Lauda giving their opinions. That's probably why they switch to V8s, because it's just driving and crashing with minimal engineering.
 
i agree there!! They should have shown more racing on Saturday too. And tell the cekebs to knock each other around more.
 
Let's not make this into a V8s vs F1 debtate - they both have their place, they both provide entertainment, and there's some top-class and not-so-top-class operators in both series.

That said - those ratings really surprise me. Since they're averages, and the F1 coverage was longer and arguably had more 'dead-air' of little interest to non-fanatics (as opposed to the shorter V8 coverage, which had a lot less non-race time), it'd be interesting to know what the audiences peaked at.
 
For an F1 nut like myself, I found the whole telecast fantastic by Ten. I'd like to have seen a little more of the Saturday track action though.
 
HondaF1 said:
For an F1 nut like myself, I found the whole telecast fantastic by Ten. I'd like to have seen a little more of the Saturday track action though.
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What track action :dunno: The on-track program was very weak this year at the GP. From the website there were only F1's Celebs, Porsches, Utes, Aussie Racing Cars, & F3's as real racing categories. (I'm not including crap like the GP rally parade, corporate karts etc) The organisers seemed to be clutching at straws even talking about running euro porsche's, Historic F5000's and even sidecars!

At the Clipsal 500 there were V8SC, Fujitsu's, Utes, GT's, FFord, Porsches, Historic Racers & Aussie Racer's There was so much on track action it was brilliant.

I was a bit disappointed at the coverage, if you watched Friday they repeated the same stuff on saturday & sunday... They do it every year too! But that's nothing to how disappointed I'll be with Malaysia being delayed 7.5 hours!
 
gti138 said:
What track action :dunno: The on-track program was very weak this year at the GP. From the website there were only F1's Celebs, Porsches, Utes, Aussie Racing Cars, & F3's as real racing categories. (I'm not including crap like the GP rally parade, corporate karts etc) The organisers seemed to be clutching at straws even talking about running euro porsche's, Historic F5000's and even sidecars!

At the Clipsal 500 there were V8SC, Fujitsu's, Utes, GT's, FFord, Porsches, Historic Racers & Aussie Racer's There was so much on track action it was brilliant.

I was a bit disappointed at the coverage, if you watched Friday they repeated the same stuff on saturday & sunday... They do it every year too! But that's nothing to how disappointed I'll be with Malaysia being delayed 7.5 hours!
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What I meant was that on Sat they showed Prac 3, Quali, Carrera Cup and Utes. They could have shown Celebs practicing, Aussie Racers too.

Mind you, this is the first time I have watched Ten's coverage of the Aussie GP cos I didnt go this year.

Malaysia is such a let down. I bet the programs that are on at 3pm that day are repeats that could be replaced. I feel a letter to Ten coming on here!!
 
Read in the paper today that the development of Victoria park has been blocked because the people opposed to the scheme consider the proposed grandstand to be too big.

I [or HondaF1] can elaborate more on this when I see the article again, but thats all I remember for now.
 
Can this be moved into Formula 1 sub-forum please Mods.

F1 night race or lose it

May 20, 2007

THE Australian Grand Prix will be ripped out of Melbourne unless it is held at night, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has warned.
But even staging the event under lights may not be enough to save the Albert Park spectacle, when its current contract expires in 2010.

Mr Ecclestone issued a blunt assessment of the race's future, in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail.

"Unless they (organisers) can come up with something satisfactory that's going to satisfy us I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to continue there," he said.

Mr Ecclestone's stand appears to signal the end of the road for the beleaguered race, which has suffered spiralling financial losses, a decline in crowds, global TV audience and sponsorship, and this year the loss of its V8 race.

Mr Ecclestone said AGP Corporation chairman Ron Walker was aware of his demands for a new contract.

"Ron is not stupid and he knows exactly what is at stake," Mr Ecclestone said.

However, the Sunday Mail has learned organisers regard changing the event to night-time as "not a huge priority".

"I don't think it is going to happen," a grand prix corporation insider said.

"To have Formula One cars hooning around Albert Park at 9pm won't go down well with the locals and it's a family event, so afternoon is obviously the ideal time."

The pressure on Melbourne increased nine days ago when Singapore was awarded a grand prix for 2008 ? on the basis it is held at night.

A Victorian Government spokesman said: "We will be seeking to keep the event in Melbourne."


Article from: Sunday Mail (SA)
 
Pffft - typical Ecclestone shit-stirring - I wouldn't read much into it. The only reason Melbourne would lose the race would be if Bernie can make more money elsewhere - that's all he cares about now.

Of course I don't want Melbourne to lose the race - but there comes a point where you've got to stop bending over for Bernie.
 
fbc said:
Pffft - typical Ecclestone shit-stirring - I wouldn't read much into it. The only reason Melbourne would lose the race would be if Bernie can make more money elsewhere - that's all he cares about now.

Of course I don't want Melbourne to lose the race - but there comes a point where you've got to stop bending over for Bernie.
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When you stop bending over for Bernie he takes the race elsewhere to someone who will bend over for him....

I think if the Melbourne race is under threat Adelaide wouldn't be interested in taking it back - we actually make a profit on the V8 race unlike the F1's (which is mainly due to the fees you pay to Bernie) I'd think it could go to sydney - as long as they dont try to run it at eastern creek. Most likely it would go off-shore to somewhere like india, russia, etc etc....
 
^ I got a letter from Kevin Foley saying that Adelaide's not interested in taking back the Formula 1 at this stage, due to the fact that the Clipsal 500 makes more profit and that the F1 climate isnt right at the moment for Adelaide to host two motorsport events.

If it were still in Adelaide, this wouldnt be coming up though!!
 
HondaF1 said:
If it were still in Adelaide, this wouldnt be coming up though!!
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I think you have to acknowledge that the F1 race-hosting contract game has changed a lot since Adelaide held the race. Bernie now holds the organisers to ransom.
 
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^ I agree with that. But, if it was still in Adelaide, as the end of season party, then I feel that this wouldnt be coming up. Melbourne's more like a formal function than Adelaide's end of year party.
 
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