Join Grace and me as we discuss Renault’s Carlos Ghosn and his arrest, the idea of Zandvoort returning as the Dutch Grand Prix and F1’s eSports championship. We even offer you more Bob Fernley talk that you ever thought possible.
Fashion Award:
"You can't take F1 to America, you have to take America to F1."
Negative Camber
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but LM (like Bernie) aren’t really interested if people turn to the GP weekend, they’ve got their fee. It’s the promoter that is the one who wants spectators there. Which is why there’s such a push for street circuits. As an example, every time I’ve been to Melbourne, it’s dead easy to get there and back, there’s free public transport or you can walk if you are close by, as opposed to say Silverstone where you have to spend 6 hours stuck in traffic just to get in and out. Which one are fans more… Read more »
All great points about street circuits. If you can maximize the likelihood of making a profit from a race instead of a loss that a government has to underwrite, then you’ll race on that kind of track.
Agreed which is why Indycar do it, Supercars do it and F1 does it. The problem with street circuits is whilst you get that walk up crowd and governments or promoters in other series may be more able to underwrite it easier, You also get a lot more local opposition which can sink the deal quite early and not many street circuits last very long as Formula E is finding out.
Zandvoort – Drawing a crowd would not be an issue. The Verstappen factor is certainly huge but Zandvoort I reckon could hold its own in terms of attendance regardless. It’s 25 miles from central Amsterdam and 15 miles from what is effectively Europe’s ‘Hub’ airport. It’s a seaside tourist town as it is and the town has a train link to Amsterdam already. The circuit is FIA Grade 2 so some circuit upgrade would be required. I know Charlie has said it wouldn’t need much and at the end of the day, its up to him. I have read some… Read more »
If you want a good idea of how F1 might work out at Zandvoort. A1GP ran at it in 2006-2007 with huge crowds.
Sorry another comment, I should probably listen to the whole of the podcast first and then comment, my bad. Just a note though on F1’s global expansion discussion. I think there’s something to be said about how the general public gauge the health of F1 and entering new markets is one way that demonstrates that outside of our little bubble. Particularly now the series has outside investors, it shows that the sport is healthy as a business.
I have been listening to this podcast since 2007 and had about $14,000 dollars worth of entertainment, so far. More recently, I have been very busy at work and guiltily deleted episodes until I can find more time to connect. This is my bad. I realise, after this installment, that I must scale-back my work commitments, cut-back my overheads and do whatever it takes to, as my parents would say, ‘listen in’ in future. The visual image of Bob Fearnley weeing on the bathroom floor and rushing out to bounce on the sofa whilst we cut to the DeFerran household… Read more »
LOL…glad you enjoyed it and more importantly, I am so grateful that you’ve been able to withstand listening to us for this long. :)