Full Throttle

Autosport reports Formula One team principals aren’t going quietly into the night with news the Canadian GP was dropped from the 2009 Championship.

As a side note, the story mentions a data bit I hadn’t realized, since the world championship came into existence in 1950 2009 will be the first time North America isn’t represented on the calender.

Tradition, what tradition? We don’t need no stinkin’ tradition!

Suspicions are, Jonathan Noble writes, “Ecclestone could be using the Canadian GP situation to improve the financial terms of holding the event, both from the promoters and the teams.”

Gee, ya think? Can you say Silverstone? Magny Cours? Indianapolis? And just about everywhere else where the local beauty pageant contestants don’t wear a hijab.

The important voices are being heard, the men at the head of the Big Money and life-blood in the sport, the major auto manufacturers.

Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry told Autosport: “I don’t think it is a short-term problem, but it is a problem that does need to be addressed. We are a global series and not to be performing in one of the major continents is a serious problem - even more so because it is a continent that is very important for the motor manufacturers who are involved in F1.

“We need to look at the north American continent situation from a more strategic point of view and work out how we increase our popularity. I don’t think you can just look at one race – you have to look at the whole situation there and put together a package which increases our appeal in North America. Then, the financial problems we have appearing at just one race in the continent, will go away.”

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen added: “I haven’t got any explanation of the decision and how it came about, so I think we will discuss it.”

Nick Fry: hammer - nail-head - smacked dead center and driven home with a single stroke!

The American economy is the largest in the world, and is driven by consumer spending by a margin of 60 plus percent versus all other types.

If Bernie “The Gnome” Ecclestone and Max “The Littlest Perv” Mosley think they can abandon North America totally without repercussions from the likes of Honda, Toyota, Mercedes and BMW they need to put down the crack-pipe and slowly back away.

Toss in their one-size-fits-all generic engine envisioned for the future and you have a potential for F1 to go from The Pinnacle of Motorsport to also ran.

Hell, too bad K.K. couldn’t keep Champ Car alive long enough. With the decline of F1 and having his foot in the EU door Kalkhoven might have been in position to usurp the two idiots at the head of F1.

ON A RELATED NOTE: Author of many auto racing books including ones on Mario Andretti and Rick Mears Gordon Kirby has written an open letter to to Bernie and Max.

It’s long, four pages, but a couple excerpts should give you the flavor of the thought process that went into writing it.

From the opening paragraphs:

Sorry we won’t see either of your charming faces anyplace in North America next year. I know you guys have much bigger fish to fry in today’s fast-changing world than messing around in the United States, least of all Canada.

I mean, if any country is less relevant than the United States to the forward thinkers of F1, it must be Canada. Surely, the great white north is too milquetoast, too remote, too much a part of yesterday’s world. After all, would you run an F1 race in Sweden or Finland? Of course not.

And this from page four:

As you guys know, recent historical events in the USA and around the world has led to a lot of greed-bashing and demands for limits on the pay of corporate executives. Greed isn’t in very good odor these days. But for the truly successful proponents of greed, who cares? It’s for the little people to whine. The guys who have it are ahead of the game. Who cares about public opinion?

Um, yeah, what he said. Please read the rest.

Finally, Premier Jean Charest has weighed in on the matter.

He says any government involvement to save the Canadian GP “would be conditional on taxpayers seeing economic spinoffs.”

With banks failing world-wide and governments doling out billions to prop them up faster than Lindsey Lohan increases her breast size what are the odds of that ever happening?

Related articles:

• Formula One must brace itself for ‘dramatic’ costcutting warns Bernie Ecclestone
• America still a dream for F1
• Au revoir, Montréal: FIA cancels Canadian GP for 2009