The Deck Is Shuffled in Formula One Races
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The highlights of Formula One’s off-season have resembled a reality television show in which contestants are publicly humiliated as they are eliminated. In this case, the contestants are entire countries trying to remain host to Grand Prix races. The latest segment began Dec. 12 in Monaco at a world motor sport council meeting of the International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body, when it was announced that the British Grand Prix next year would take the date of the French Grand Prix and vice versa and that the French race might be dropped altogether. France has until Wednesday to confirm a contract with Formula One Management, which controls the commercial rights to the sport, and the 10 teams must agree to this 18th race, as their contract binds them to only 17 a season. On Friday, just as the French motor sport federation announced that it had secured the financial backing to fulfill the contract, a pledge by the president of the Burgundy regional council to provide two million euros, or $2.46 million, was shot down by regional councilors, striking another blow to France’s hope of staging the race. The Dec. 12 move by the international federation was just the latest of a series of flip-flops and resuscitations of apparently moribund races that some insiders see as a sign of the sport’s growing pains as it expands to Asia and the Middle East and faces an impending end to tobacco sponsorship. The trend actually started last season when the Belgian Grand Prix was dropped after the government instituted an antitobacco advertising law outlawing the sport’s major sponsors — cigarette companies — from showing off their product. The Belgian government reacted by softening the law in July, when Parliament voted to allow tobacco sponsorship in events “of world importance” until July 2005. Bernie Ecclestone, who runs Formula One Management, responded quickly, telling Belgium in early August that it would have its race back. Then in mid-August, Normand Legault, the promoter of the Canadian Grand Prix, in June, announced that his race had been kicked out of the series because it had started an antitobacco law, effective this past autumn. The Canadian government and special interest groups leapt into action to save the race, the country’s biggest annual sporting event, which injects about $80 million into the Montreal economy from spectators in town for the race. This time, however, Canada said unequivocally that it would not change the tobacco law. |