After being celebrated with the ‘best promoter’ award from the FIA three years on the trot, the Mexican Grand Prix could be in a spot of bother. The contract ends with F1 in 2019 and the new president—Autosport describes him as “a left-wing politician and former Mexico City mayor, won the Mexican presidency last summer and assumed it at the start of December with a mission to “purify public life” in the country”– Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO as he is known, said:
“I do not know how the F1 contracts are. If they are not signed, we will not be able to.
“In some cases, events were financed by the tourism development fund and that fund is committed to the construction of the Mayan train.
“We do not know in what situation these contracts [with F1] are. We are going to review them.
“We will continue to support all sports but with austerity, without excess, without waste.”
Now, there were lots of facts and figures that justified the government investment in the race with jobs created, revenue generated and tourism etc. Regardless, after spending $106 million on preparing the track and re-launching the grand prix, it would be a shame to see it leave the calendar after only one stint back in F1.
Building a new train may be very important to the president and people of Mexico and perhaps it just depends on where you think the biggest ROI would be but here’s hoping Carlos Slim will pony up the cash to keep the Mexican Grand Prix going if he can find time between all his meetings regarding his ownership position in the New York Times.
Hat Tip: Autosport
Time for Liberty to come to the table and participate in fashioning a sustainable non-public finance model for F1
I would think a multi-state regional transportation project would be a bigger ROI than a weekend GP, so it’s kinda a no-brainer from that point of view.
BUT he didn’t ‘cut’ the subsidies yet though. He just said they’d look at the contracts. It’s very possible the contracts won’t let them out for a few more years. So this doesn’t sound like a Mexican GP ends this year sort of thing I think.