2014 F1 Calendar Update

Formula 1′s crowded 2014 calendar looks set to shed at least a couple of races before it is finalized.

Speed Week reports that the new Grand Prix scheduled for New Jersey and Mexico will in fact not take place next season.

The 2014 schedule should then shrink from an unprecedented 22 to a still-hectic 20 races.

Formula 1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone was quoted as saying the construction of a new pit building in Mexico is “virtually impossible” for a November 2014 race date.

And New Jersey, he added, is “not going to happen because they haven’t got their finances in place.”

Ecclestone is quoted by SID news agency in Abu Dhabi: “I only put it (New Jersey) on the calendar because they assured me again and again that everything will work out.” 

22 Races of 2014 F1 Calendar

The Championship 2014 Formula 1 provides a record 22 races including the first Russian Grand Prix scheduled on October 5, two weeks earlier than expected, according to the schedule adopted last weekend by the World Council of the automobile.

The Russian organizing committee announced in July that the Russian Grand Prix was scheduled for 19 October in Sochi city between the edges of the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, the host of the Winter Olympics in February. Expenditures for the Grand Prix wanted by President Vladimir Putin and organized on the site of the future Olympic Games have increased by more than 70% compared to initial estimates, had reported last week the daily Vedomosti.

The cost of improvements is estimated at 11 billion rubles (260 million euros), against 148 million euros at the time of the signing in 2010 of the Agreement between Vladimir Putin, then prime minister, and Bernie Ecclestone, the big treasurer of F1, as Vedomosti citing Tsentr Omega Project Group.

Mexico is back in business for the first time since 1992, on the old circuit Brothers Rodriguez in Mexico City, which will be renovated in time for a GP set on 16 November.

Also return to the Austrian GP Red Bull Ring (formerly A1 Ring) being renovated by Dietrich Mateschitz, the energy drink magnate.

The Belgian Grand Prix will take place on August 24 at Spa-Francorchamps.

Bahrain tipped to be night race in 2014?

Bahrain will celebrate its tenth anniversary as a F1 host by staging next year's race under lights.

Although 2014 will not be the tenth Bahrain Grand Prix, because the race was removed from the calendar in 2011 due to the island Kingdom's civil unrest outbreak, it will be the tenth anniversary of the first race in 2004. To mark the occasion, circuit chairman Zayed Alzayani revealed earlier this year: "We are looking at many options.

"A night race could be one of them, but it is not the only one. There are pros and cons to doing it."

It appears the 'pros' have won the day, with European publications Speed Week (Germany) and Italiaracing (Italy) reporting that the deal was agreed between Alzayani and Bernie Ecclestone at Monza at the weekend. Speed Week said the news will be confirmed 'in the coming days', while Italia racing said the work to install the lighting systems should be complete by February.

According to the draft calendar that did the rounds at Monza, Bahrain will host the fifth round of the 2014 championship, in late April. Speed Week correspondent Mathias Brunner said: "It is still unclear whether Bahrain will be a twilight race, like Abu Dhabi, or a pure night race, like Singapore."

Mexico In and New Jersey Out - 2014 Formula One Provisional Calendar

Formula 1 is set for a 21-race calendar next year, including the return of Mexico but no New Jersey race, AUTOSPORT can reveal. A first draft of the 2014 provisional calendar has been distributed to teams ahead of this weekend's Italian Grand Prix.

Although the 2014 schedule needs to be approved at a meeting of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council that takes place in Croatia on September 26-28, teams are bracing themselves for F1's longest ever season. An early version of the schedule, which has been seen by AUTOSPORT, does not include the proposed event in New Jersey that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone had hoped to include. However, it will feature events in Russia and Mexico, providing the circuits are ready in time.

As has been widely expected, the season will start in Australia on March 16 for the traditional double-header with Malaysia. The Korean Grand Prix has been moved from the end of season run of flyaway events to become the fourth race of the campaign, taking place in the week after the Chinese GP. However, the event is likely to only be made official subject to the completion of a contract with Formula One Management.

The returning Austrian GP is penciled in for June 22, earlier than the July 6 date that it was originally scheduled for. The new Russian GP at Sochi will become a back-to-back with Abu Dhabi, while the Mexican GP is being twinned with the USA GP at Austin. The Spanish GP is set to take place at Barcelona, with Valencia not making it back on to the schedule, while the German GP will return to Hockenheim.

DRAFT 2014 CALENDAR

March 16 - Australia (Melbourne)
March 23 - Malaysia (Sepang)
April 6 - China (Shanghai)
April 13 – Korea* (Korea International Circuit)
April 27 – Bahrain (Sakhir)
May 11 – Spain (Barcelona)
May 25 – Monaco (Monaco)
June 8 – Canada (Montreal)
June 22 – Austria (Red Bull Ring)
July 6 – Britain (Silverstone)
July 20 – Germany (Hockenheim)
July 27 – Hungary (Budapest)
August 24 – Belgium (Spa)
September 7 – Italy (Monza)
September 21 – Singapore (Marina Bay)
October 5 - Japan (Suzuka)
October 19 – Russia* (Sochi)
October 26 – Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
November 9 – Mexico* (Mexico City)
November 16 – USA (Circuit of the Americas)
November 30 – Brazil (Interlagos)

* (subject to confirmation of track/contract)

2014 F1 Calendar speculation

The roar was drowned out by the incessant chattering over the 2014 provisional calendar.

The calendar speculation has been intense this summer, with all sorts of changes afoot. The first story was that India would be moving to the spring, where it would be back-to-back with China. And it will be held in 2015. Both Melbourne and Bahrain are in line to kick off proceedings in 2014.

What was interesting about the speculation taking place in Spa is that much of it differed depending on the nationality of the gossip in question. I have long been expecting Mexico to return to the calendar, but while the Europeans have been looking to 2015 - pointing to all the work needed to bring the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez back up to F1-spec - the Latin American media are talking seriously about 2014. Charlie Whiting, the FIA's race director and safety delegate, is due to visit Mexico in the coming weeks to inspect the circuit, and if the race organisers are able to complete the necessary work in time, Mexico could appear on the calendar as early as next year. The aim is to run the race back-to-back with Austin, giving the F1 circus a week off in the Americas before traipsing down to Interlagos for the season finale.

Austria's return to the calendar - with a provisional date of 6 July, no less - is looking more and more like a replacement for the German Grand Prix, and not an additional European event. But even that much-heralded event has its own issues, thanks to crowd capacity restrictions of 40,000, lower even that the 60,000 widely reported elsewhere. Exceptions can be applied for, but there is a lot of red tape to wade through. Speaking of red tape, Formula One looks likely to trade one behemoth of bureaucracy for another, with the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi set to claim India's late-October date. Or thereabouts, anyway – should Mexico join the calendar in 2014 there will be a lot of shuffling of dates in the final round of flyaways.

And then there's New Jersey to consider. The weekend's reports that the race was off have been denied by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who said the race would go ahead as long as the organisers complied with the terms of their contract. But the NJ race will complicate the summer somewhat. Monaco is generally fixed as the last weekend in May, and the WMSC have blocked out the weekend of 14 June for Le Mans. If Austria takes place on 6 July as scheduled, that leaves Montreal, New Jersey, and Silverstone all looking for a June slot.

Michelin could be face of F1 tyre supplier in 2014

There is increased speculation that Michelin could return to Formula One next season after was interested in supplying the sport for next year.

Formula One does not currently have its tyre supply for 2014 confirmed, although Pirelli is known to have commercial contracts in place with all but one team. It's a point Ecclestone too has acknowledged, making any change in supplier difficult. Michelin is said to have told teams over the Monaco Grand Prix weekend that it was not interested in supplying Formula One next season.

It has also been reported that should Michelin enter F1 it would want to move away from the current 13-inch wheels to 18-inch wheels for 2016, and does not want to produce the type of fast-wearing rubber Formula One has had for the last three seasons. Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery has made his position on the current situation clear, believing it would be farcical to begin a tender process now. "If you wanted to do that then it should have been done in September of last year," Hembery said at the weekend. "Everybody will look ridiculous in that scenario."

Pirelli is in a strong position as any change in tyre supply must come via a tender process. Following the Spanish Grand Prix Mercedes performed unauthorised tyre testing for Pirelli. It resulted in both appearing before an FIA International Tribunal which ruled that while the test was not in keeping with the rules (and banned Mercedes from the subsequent Young Driver Test at Silverstone). Pirelli cannot therefore be excluded from any tender process or deemed unfit for supply, thereby closing one door on the FIA's alleged desire to switch to Michelin.

Much of that however has been for reasons out of its control with the teams themselves complicit in many of the failures seen so far in 2013.

Had teams followed Pirelli's advice it is likely we would not have seen the same concern surrounding tyres. Perhaps Paul Hembery and his team is naïve to expect Formula One teams to follow advice and recommendations rather than looking for greater performance, but the line has to be drawn somewhere and ultimately it is Pirelli which has suffered for the teams' unwillingness to listen. There are now regulations in place to ensure they do, and changes to the tyres have not seen a repeat of the Silverstone fiasco where a number of tyres failed.

There remains a general feeling within the paddock that the tyres are too susceptible to 'debris' on the circuit, with Mark Webber wanting a better explanation. "We need answers, and 'debris' is not the answer," Webber argued on Friday.

For Michelin to win a tender process over Pirelli it would have to very clearly demonstrate that it is the best possible supplier for Formula One. The French company must prove it can produce tyres to an incredibly tight deadline and provide an attractive financial package to teams who currently pay Pirelli in the region of £2.6million a year.

Mexico set to return in 2014 says Ecclestone

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that a decision is due “within a couple of weeks” about whether the Mexican Grand Prix will take place next year.

The race would fill a void in the F1 calendar which has been left by the exit of several races, including the planned Grand Prix of America in New Jersey which Ecclestone has said will not go ahead in 2014 because the organizers have not raised enough money to fund it. The 2014 calendar will be finalized in December by F1's governing body, the FIA, but new races need financing in place by now to ensure their plans are on track. “I should know within a couple of weeks about Mexico,” Ecclestone told Autoweek, adding “I'm going to try to make it happen.”

The Grand Prix is due to be held at Mexico City's Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which last hosted an F1 race in 1992. The plan to revive the Mexican Grand Prix has the backing of an all-star management team which is driven by two key figures. The first is Tavo Hellmund, the creator and mastermind of the F1 USGP and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. His counterpart in Mexico is Alejandro Soberon, chief executive of the world's third-largest live entertainment company, CIE. The team members include Carlos Slim Domit, who sits on the FIA's decision-making body, the Senate, and is son of the world's richest man, Carlos Slim. 

The Mexican Grand Prix is understood to be fully funded but, according to Ecclestone, the same cannot be said of the Grand Prix of America in New Jersey. Its organizers appointed investment bank UBS in June to raise $100 million which is required for the race to go ahead. It seems they have run out of time. "It's not on the cards for next year,” said Ecclestone, adding that the problem is “they haven't got any money.”

The race was planned to be run on 3.2 miles of public roads in Port Imperial, a district in the New Jersey towns of West New York and Weehawken. It snakes alongside the Hudson river and would give the race a spectacular backdrop of Manhattan's historic skyline.

It was originally set for June this year but was postponed after the organizers missed payment deadlines in their contract with the F1 Group. Ecclestone said he signed the deal despite the funding not being in place because he understood the organizers would be able to raise it. The promoter is Leo Hindery Jr., a sometime racer and managing partner of private equity fund InterMedia Partners. “The guy is a multibillionaire and is well-known in New York,” said Ecclestone.

In 2011 Hindery provided the initial $10.3 million investment in race organizing company Port Imperial Racing Associates (PIRA) and obtained an additional $10.1 million loan. In April this year, the F1 Group itself provided the company with a credit facility personally guaranteed by Hindery, but the Grand Prix still needs $100 million to get the green light. It isn't the only race that has hit a roadblock.

Last month it was announced that the Indian Grand Prix will skip 2014 but this was balanced out by the news that the Austrian Grand Prix will return to the calendar after an 11-year hiatus. It would keep the number of races stable at 19 in 2014 if it wasn't for the addition of the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi.

F1's contracts with the teams stipulate that majority consent from Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing is required if there are more than 20 races in a season. If Mexico joins but the brakes stay on New Jersey, it seems there would be 21 races in 2014. However, there have been widespread reports that the loss-making Korean Grand Prix may be dropped next year which means that Mexico would take the total just to the limit of 20. Ecclestone couldn't have planned it much better.