Ecclestone and Russia said YES on a new GP

  Russia is making a renewed bid to bring Formula One racing to Sochi with F1 rights holder Bernie Ecclestone agreeing terms for a grand prix to be held in 2014, the same year the Black Sea resort hosts the Winter Olympics. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whose backing was crucial in Sochi winning the right to host the Games, is due in the city on Thursday to sign an agreement for work to begin on the construction of a new US$200 million circuit. Ecclestone told local media that after several rounds of negotiations with the Russian authorities the conditions for the contract have been agreed. "The document has still not been signed but when the appropriate person from Russia signs it, I will sign it the next day," Ecclestone told the Kommersant daily newspaper. He said that the annual fee Russia would pay for hosting a grand prix would be comparable with that of around $US40 million paid by new grand prix hosts Singapore and Abu Dhabi. However, racing fans should not hurry to book their tickets after Ecclestone pronounced similar sentiments in 2002 for a proposed grand prix in Moscow.

On 22 March that year, the Russian capital’s ex-mayor Yury Luzhkov and the F1 boss were set to strike a deal while dozens of journalists came to Moscow’s City Hall ready to cover the historic moment, but the deal collapsed at the last minute after the two sides failed to agree on financial terms. "They want to sweep all the profits leaving us to pay all the expenses and stay happy with the smell of the petrol smog," said Luzhkov, who has since been sacked by President Dmitry Medvedev. The project of showcasing Formula One at a completely new circuit in Sochi’s Olympic Park has also raised questions over how Russia can jump from hosting virtually no races of importance to the biggest of them all. "Staging the Formula One event in Russia in the existing conditions is a pure utopia," Russia’s Formula Two driver Ivan Samarin commented. "We should build several circuits for staging the national racing series before starting the construction of a Formula One racing course." Samarin added that Russia should also change its mentality and stop expecting an immediate profit from the investments into the project. "The construction of the racing circuit is an investment into the future," he said. "The staging of a Formula One race raises the prestige of the entire country and attracts crowds of tourists, who are ready to pay for the show, but the investors should be ready to wait years before their investments start bringing profit."

Russia currently has one F1 driver, Vitaly Petrov, who became the country’s first ever driver in the class by being chosen to drive for Renault in the 2010 season.

If this will ever become reallity we must wait and see, for the moment Vitaly is bringing more popularity to the sport in his home country and on the long run this could prove beneficial, but i guess the final word here will belong to Putin and as far as know he pretty much did whatever he wanted in the past 10 years in Russia, so i guess is a safe bet that we will see a F1 Circuit there.

News © Sapa – AFP, Photo © MNI

Tags f1 formula1 news moscow news petrov putin russia vitaly vladimir