This blog has now closed. Please visit my new blog, Stepreo.

Archive: Melbourne

Australia and night races: why?

11 March 2008 20:09

Categories: Opinion

I have written before about the stick the Australian Grand Prix bosses are getting from all angles. Even since I wrote that post, Bernie Ecclestone’s demands have become ever more extreme. In particular, Mr Ecclestone’s current obsession with night races appears to have deepened. His comments suggest that he very much wants to have his cake and eat it. For me, the logic behind night races is muddled and confused.

We know that Bernie Ecclestone wants Formula 1 to expand its reach throughout the globe, particularly into Asia. The motivation behind this approach is fairly sound. Take F1 to the people of Asia, and the people of Asia will come to F1, building on the sport’s strong fanbase in Europe and expanding it eastward.

However, I wonder if Bernie Ecclestone’s motives are really as noble and simple as that. The more this project continues, the more it begins to look like Bernie Ecclestone is simply out to persuade gullible governments of developing countries to pay through the nose for the privilege of having an F1 race. Many of these governments will do anything to feel like members of the western club of developed nations, and where better to start than that most global — yet still quintessentially western — of sports, motor racing?

Yet, you have to wonder if these governments are really getting value for money. I think not. How long will it take before the good people of Bahrain, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, et al. realise they are being swindled?

Until that happens, it is by exploiting this situation that Bernie Ecclestone is able to pull the same trick on not-so-gullible western governments. “Look at all these other Grands Prix that are subsidised,” he says. “Why can’t you do the same?” This is the heart of Ecclestone’s demands to the organisers of the British, French and Australian Grands Prix among others that have the Sword of Damocles dangling above them.

The demands for a night race show up Ecclestone’s muddled thinking and hypocrisy. The idea behind night races is so that the ‘flyaway’ races can be broadcast on prime time television in Europe, where F1′s strongest base of support is. But this completely contradicts the supposed big idea behind hosting races in places like Asia in the first place.

Why take F1 to Asia then make the residents of these places get up in the middle of the night to watch them? Why, indeed, should the residents of Melbourne — or, indeed, Singapore City — be asked to put up with wailing F1 engines at 3am?

Meanwhile, the fact that the time difference means that European F1 fans have to get up in the middle of the night to watch the Australian Grand Prix is one of the things that defines us as F1 fans. We like to get up at silly o’clock to watch F1 — it is part of the quaint charm of the Australian and Japanese Grands Prix. Perhaps, like Ollie, I might not even be interested in F1 today had I not viewed Formula 1 as a cheeky opportunity to stay up late at night as a youngster.

Okay, so not all fans will be bothered to get up at 3am to watch this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. But there will be a damn sight more Europeans than Asians willing to get up at 3am for F1. The big idea behind night races has now unravelled.

The only other thing a night race has going for it is the pure spectacle of seeing F1 cars racing under floodlights. I am sorry, but I just can’t get excited about that.

I watched last weekend’s Qatar MotoGP, the first race to be held under floodlights. But it was clear that the night time conditions added little to the spectacle. The only time it looked much different was from the overhead helicopter view of the circuit. Apart from that, the only difference was a few funny shadows. Big whoop!

By the end of the race, the BBC’s excellent commentators Charlie Cox and Steve Parrish (take note ITV — the Beeb know how to cover a motor race properly!), were just asking themselves, “Why a night race?” The best answer was, because we can. Is that reason enough?

The commentators also touched on the environmental impact. When Formula 1 is supposedly trying to become a greener sport, it is now asking race organisers to generate ridiculously huge amounts of electricity.

Many of the big ideas that Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley propose contradict each other in fundamental ways. The lack of joined-up thinking in Ecclestone’s current demands for night races, Asian venues and street circuits astonishes me.

5 comments

More woes for Australian Grand Prix organisers?

7 March 2008 17:28

Categories: News, Opinion

Over the past few weeks there have been a number of stories surrounding the Australian Grand Prix. It must seem as though everyone wants to throw stones at Ron Walker and co.

Of course, this is nothing new. Bernie Ecclestone’s carping criticisms are par for the course whenever any circuit’s contract is coming up for renegotiation. Melbourne has most recently been feeling the heat.

And ever since the Australian Grand Prix moved to Albert Park back in 1996, environmental campaigners and pressure groups such as Save Albert Park have been trying their best to do away with the race. This report of a recent radio interview with Ron Walker highlights the increasingly hostile attitude that many Australians appear to be taking towards the Melbourne grand prix.

Due to its apparent political unpopularity, the race’s organisers have been trying their best to articulate the case for keeping the race in Melbourne in terms of the economic benefits and the race’s popularity in terms of attendance figures. But in the face of mounting pressure their case has begun to fall apart.

Increasingly it looks as though the race organises have been massaging attendance figures in order to project a better picture than is really the case. According to a report on Pitpass a few weeks ago, the “official” attendance figures include freebies, school excursions, corporate tickets and even competition prize tickets that haven’t been used! Despite the use of a variety of schemes to encourage people to attend, grandstands can look pretty empty.

A recent story published in The Age has raised some eyebrows in Australia. The newspaper wrote a report highlighting some home truths about Australian Grand Prix attendance.

Among the interesting information in the report is the fact that the organisers do not even know how many people attend the event. Nevertheless, organisers advertise it as “the best-attended grand prix in the world”, citing a figure of 301,000. Meanwhile, the Save Albert Park campaign group, using a more open and transparent process, have worked out that the “official” figure has been inflated by as much as 45%. Most astonishingly, the “official” figure is said to include “drivers, car mechanics, grid girls, hospitality staff, and even race bosses”.

As you can see if you have visited The Age website, the story now comes complete with a honking great “clarification” in bold writing at the top. According to Crikey, the way this has been handled is causing consternation among the paper’s staff.

The word around The Age newsroom is that after reporter Ben Doherty’s story was published, he was called in to editor [Andrew] Jaspan’s office to meet Grand Prix executives and answer their queries. This is extraordinary. Traditionally, editors shield their reporters from this kind of pressure, unless there is a clear case of error or misconduct. Even then, it is the editor’s role to deal with the interested parties.

Furthermore, the “bullshit” clarification does little to undermine the story. The very length of the clarification is apparently unprecedented.

The case for the Australian Grand Prix remaining in Melbourne appears to be fairly flimsy. In the face of increasing public dismay about taxpayers’ money being spent on the race, the race’s organisers appear to be adopting strong-arm tactics in order to keep a lid on the debate.

They used to call it a “great place for a race”. But are the days of Albert Park as an F1 venue numbered?

Any thoughts on this? Would you be sad to see Melbourne go? What possible alternative venues are there for the Australian Grand Prix?

H/T Colin Campbell

5 comments

The Commonwealth Games are crap, but I’ll watch them anyway

15 March 2006 22:38

Categories: Entertainment, General

I was going to write a post about how I just don’t get the Commonwealth Games. It’s not an aversion to sport, and it’s not necessarily an aversion to the British Empire (+ Mozambique), or whatever it was that ended up being today’s Commonwealth of Nations. Although I could talk about that in a minute.

No, my real problem with the Commonwealth Games is that they’re just fakey-games. It’s like a counterfeit Olympics. They don’t have the same prestige. They aren’t even based on a geographical area like, say, a European Championship of anything, or even a tournament like the Six Nations. In fact, looking at a map of Commonwealth nations, you may almost as well have pulled them out of a hat.

If you win in the Olympics, you are the best in the world. If a football team wins the European Championships they are the best in Europe. To be the best in the Commonwealth — I just can’t visualise that in my head. If I hear somebody described as a ‘Commonwealth champion’, my head translates it into “Not good enough to be Olympic champion; maybe not even good enough to be European champion.”

Who cares about the Commonwealth anyway? It’s a cheesy point to make, but really, what is the Commonwealth for? Nobody thinks of their nation as being part of the Commonwealth in the same way that they think about being a member of the European Union. Most people probably even forget that the Commonwealth even exists, except during those two weeks every four years when they’re forced to play badminton with each other (in a “friendly” manner, of course) in the name of it. Don’t they just hold boring meetings that aren’t important at all? And that flag seriously needs sorted out. If anybody can think of anything that screams ’1970s’ more, I wouldn’t like to see it.

Is anybody outside of the Commonwealth even remotely interested in the Commonwealth Games? Will Germans keep tabs on it in the same way as a Brit checks up on the African Cup of Nations? I can’t imagine it, although tell me if I’m wrong. I don’t think many people even in Britain are very interested in the Commonwealth Games. I can’t remember a single thing from the 2002 tournament. The only legacy is a spiffy new stadium for Manchester City.

So why am I going to watch them? Because like all the coolest sporting events, it’s on late at night. We were robbed of some excellent late-night sporting action at this year’s Winter Olympics, unlike the ones at Salt Lake City. If I’m having trouble sleeping at any point while the Commonwealth Games are on (and that is almost an inevitability), I’m afraid Quizmania will have make do without me. Sorry Flash!

6 comments

F1 struggling to hold 11? I think not

2 January 2006 17:14

Categories: Formula 1

When I was growing up watching Formula 1, there were always 22 cars. It seemed to be a kind of unwritten rule of F1, that there were 11 teams and 22 cars. Then, with rumblings from Honda and the arrival of Toyota, there seemed destined to be 12 or even more teams on the grid. Then 2001 came along and some wee teams went broke, and we were left with just ten teams. The 107% rule was ditched only a few years ago.

Races aren’t meant to start with fewer than 20 cars (we don’t mention Indianapolis), and I think there is meant to be space for 24 cars before, presumably, some form of pre-qualifying has to take place.

So I am struggling to see how Melbourne and other circuits could possibly be having problems with accommodating an 11^th team in F1. A Grand Prix has been held there every year since 1996, yet:

Melbourne’s facilities were pretty mcuh state-of-the-art 10 years ago but nothing much has changed since then. The design is such that adding an additional building to the existing five units (the administration building plus four garage buildings) would not be easy and there would inevitably be questions of cost and whether building should be allowed.

If it’s the case that “nothing much has changed” since 1996, then why are they worrying about fitting in an 11^th team when they managed it perfectly well a decade ago? Besides which, those responsible are surely aware that at any point in the future there could be more than ten teams in Formula 1?