MOTORSPORT: F1 at the double in USA

In yet another attempt at making Formula One work in the USA, a street race has been announced within sight of New York's skyscrapers -- without any public funding.

October 26, 2011

F1 at the double in USA
GP in Texas from next year, New Jersey from 2013
Formula One has never conquered America, the world’s biggest and richest market, and it’s four years since it raced there – but soon the USA is to have two GPs each year.

A new street race with the Manhattan skyline as its backdrop was announced overnight. It is to become part of the F1 world championship in 2013.

Already on the calendar next year is a grand prix at the Circuit of the Americas, a $300 million track under construction at Austin, Texas.

While much is being made of the latest addition’s proximity to New York it is actually in the state of New Jersey. Unlike street races in Australia such as Melbourne’s F1 GP, Sydney’s Homebush 500 and last weekend’s Gold Coast 600 and the F1 event planned for Texas, the New Jersey race is to be staged without taxpayer funding. At least that is the plan.

It is intended to be entirely privately financed.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that a consortium of investors is involved. New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced that the race would be held on a 3.2-mile (5.12km) circuit on existing roads through Port Imperial and at the top of the Palisades in Weehawken and West New York.

“New Jersey will bring one of the world’s most popular and exciting sports right to our backyard,” Christie said.

“I can assure F1 that this is one of the wisest decisions you have ever made, to come and hold this event in New Jersey. People from the whole world will come to New Jersey to see this unique and exciting course.”

West New York attorney Joe DeMarco vowed that the New Jersey streets would make “a very challenging course”.

“They compare it to Spa in Belgium but it will have the feel of Monaco,” he said.

West New York mayor, Felix Roque, said: “It’s incredible. This is going to be an economic boom for this whole region. While political and public servants talk about creating jobs, the governor has put the pedal to the metal and delivered.”

Roque and Weehawken mayor, Richard Turner, stressed that no taxpayer money would be spent to host the GP.

Car games manufacturers involved in F1 have been pressuring the sport’s British supremo Bernie Ecclestone to return to the USA because of the importance of the country to their businesses.

F1 has run at many American venues in the past, most notably at Watkins Glen in upstate New York and on the streets of Long Beach in California. However, many of the other experiments failed miserably, with Americans fond of open-wheelers preferring Indy cars in the days of A J Foyt and Mario Andretti.

In the past quarter of a century US motorsport fans have flocked to NASCAR - stock cars racing predominantly on oval tracks.

The last F1 experiment in America was at Indianapolis, where a special road course was adapted within the famous 'Brickyard' speedway. While it began in a blaze of glory with a huge crowd in 2000 it became the scene of perhaps F1’s most embarrassing day, when only six cars ran in the 2005 US GP after teams on Michelin tyres withdrew because they did not trust the safety of their rubber.

The Indianapolis race lapsed two years later when the contract for the event expired.

GPs are notoriously expensive to stage, primarily because of the fees charged by the Ecclestone-run Formula One Management – as Melbourne and most recently Korea have discovered. The Melbourne event has cost Victorian taxpayers more than $50 million a time in each of the past three years.

“The trouble with F1 is that it too often squeezes every last penny from ‘clients’, before asking for a little bit more each time they go back,” the London Guardian’s Paul Weaver wrote overnight.

“If F1 and Ecclestone can curb that propensity then the move to the US – both in Austin and New York – should be a spectacular triumph… but before everyone starts whooping and hollering it should be remembered that previous F1 adventures in the US have not ended well.”

Nevertheless, countries still hound Ecclestone to join the world championship calendar, with the first Indian GP this weekend at new circuit in New Delhi and a Russian date likely to be added in the next couple of years as the sport spreads further from its traditional European heart.

Indy star Power has new back injury

Australian IndyCar star Will Power has been found to have a compression fracture in his back from the 15-car crash at the Las Vegas season finale in which Dan Wheldon was killed.

Power initially was cleared of any significant injuries but had further checks in Indianapolis this week because of persistent back pain.

IndyCar’s orthopedic specialist Dr Terry Trammell found Power had a compression fracture of his fourth thoracic vertebra. He is expected to recover fully with rest and rehabilitation.

Power suffered a broken back in an IndyCar crash at Sonoma, California, in mid-2009 but, driving for Roger Penske, has come back to be runner-up to Scotsman Dario Franchitti of the Ganassi team the past two years.

Englishwoman Pippa Mann, another driver in the Las Vegas pile-up, is to have her injured hand rebuilt.

“Need replacement blood vessels, nerves, stealing a tendon from my wrist and a skin graft,” Mann said on Twitter.