Aussie Grand Prix Deep in the Red
The Australian Formula One Grand Prix lost a record A$40 million ($26.7 million) in 2008, organizers said on Thursday.
The announcement came just months after the Victoria state government and race organisers agreed to underwrite the costs of staging the event until 2015.
Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone had threatened to dump Melbourne from the calendar after 2010 unless organisers switched to a night race to accommodate European television audiences.
Local officials refused to stage a night race but agreed to a compromise with a twilight start time.
They signed a five-year extension to 2015 in July, despite criticism that the race was becoming an unnecessary burden on taxpayers.
Organizers lost $35 million on the race in 2007 and Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker said the losses were likely to continue in future years.
“In the current economic climate of high fuel and transport costs, the deficit between cost and revenue is expected to increase by 10 percent per annum,” Walker said in
Note: The first one who correctly identifys the Australian GP year and the car/driver combination wins a free Full Throttle Cupie Doll. (To be designed and shipped at a later date.)
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woah! Nice new digs! (I had to reload the page cause I didn’t know where I was for a minute!)
Meeshbeer - That’s the whole idea, I’m hiding out from the NASCAR PC Police and had to go incognito.
Oh Marc, did you piss off the NASCAR boys again. How many times have I told you to stop introducing the facts, the truth & balance to your NASCAR posts?
Which post brought on their wrath, I must haved missed it.
BTW, your picture & question above has me stumped. It cant be from when the GP started in Adelaide in 86, that car looks like a 70’s March, & it can’t be from the old Tasman era as the car seems to late. I confess I dont know.
The helmet is white, but I dont think it has the Alan Jones, red pin stripes…..nope, I’m stumped.
Back to the story in hand, with Bernie rasing the ransom over the years, the GP is becoming harder to justify. Dropping a few million of tax payer dollars was off-set by the huge bucks the event brings into the Victorian economy that week.
Even I’m begining to qustion the value of the race - bet you thought you would never hear that from me - if I were a Victorian taxpayer I think I would have to protest.
F’ing Bernie! I have always maintained that a day would come when he would not be in a sellers market & the venues would have their revenge. Perhaps that day is not too far off.
The trick question was even too tricky for the open wheel expert. (Excuse me while I gloat!)
‘79 it was a Formula 5000 event at Sandown. The car is a Lola T430, and I believe the driver was Alan Hamilton.
Buwawawahahaha! Trick of Treat!