Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The dropping of the Canadian Grand Prix

In recent weeks there has not been a heck of a lot to talk about in the open wheel racing world, but today we all got a real shock, and that shock was the dropping of the Canadian Grand Prix from the 2009 Formula One schedule. Montreal has been a fixture on the F1 calendar for the last 30 years, with one exception being 1987 where a sponsorship row got the race canceled. There was no indication from any news source that this was going to happen and when the world motorsport council released their preliminary schedule in June there were no asterixes next to Montreal, no conditions, it was a done deal, the Canadian Grand Prix was scheduled for June 7, 2009, the 47th Canadian Grand Prix in total (if you count the pre-F1 years on the 1960's).

This will come as a major shock to the car manufacturers who are pressing the FIA to have more North American presence for Formula One and it will come as a major economic shock to the city of Montreal. The Grand Prix is the biggest event of the year with hundreds of thousands of tourists descending on Montreal for the weekend spending millions of dollars in the hotels, shops, and (especially) bars and restaurants. The Canadian Grand Prix is a major party, and there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that NASCAR or the IRL could create anything close to the same buzz that the Canadian Grand Prix creates year after year. Montreal and Quebec are the closest things you will find to Europe on the North American continent and the province of Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve are Formula One crazy and show their support for the race year after year by doing something that most other Grands Prix struggle to do, pay money to go and watch the race. Every year for the last few years the race has been a sellout and setting records in the process. This year alone over 300,000 people descended on the Ile Notre-Dame over the three days of the race, most likely (I would have to check some figures) the biggest attendance of the year for the three days of an F1 race. Not only is the Canadian Grand Prix well attended, it is also massively popular among the drivers and teams, with the buzz and atmosphere of the city-wide party being passed on to the drivers and teams.

One wonders what the reasoning for axing Montreal could be, as there was no indication this was coming and the FIA have yet to say why Montreal was dropped. There had been some issues with the circuit breaking up this year, but that was temporarily solved by a patching mechanism this year and is very easily fixable, and the other reason could be transportation costs, although I can't imagine it being much more expensive to fly from Europe to Montreal than it is to fly to Singapore or Shanghai..... There have also been suggestions that the FIA has decided to leave North America to NASCAR, but to me that seems silly. If the FIA were to do that it would indicate to me that they have no clue about Quebec, and they are incredibly stupid to abandon one of the largest and richest markets for cars in the world. The likes of Honda, Toyota, and BMW sell massive amounts of cars over here every year and know full well that an F1 presence over here will only help, not hinder their sales figures, so I can't imagine that the new Formula One Teams Association had much to do with decision. This also does not appear to be one of Mr. E's money grabs where he puts pressure on the organizers for higher fees because in June they had come to an agreement for 2009. To me this all points to the greed of FOM and the FIA. They saw that the teams wanted a summer break and were not about to drop a European race so they looked at the calendar and decided to drop the race that payed less in race fees than the likes of Bahrain, Singapore, Abu Dhabi et al, and tag Montreal is it!!! This is a ludicrous decision that lacks foresight and only smacks of a quick money grab at the long term detriment of the sport. Watch out Melbourne, you are next....................

1 comment:

Pete DaSilva said...

A damn shame...the FIA has me numb and desensitized to these schedule moves.