MOTORSPORT: New love for permanent circuits

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has admitted that a permanent circuit in Melbourne may be the way to keep the Australian Grand Prix alive in the city beyond 2015.

Trucking tycoon Lindsay Fox's Linfox group, owner of the Phillip Island circuit, has made known its interest in building a circuit adjoining its Avalon airport near Geelong, although that may be too far from Melbourne to win favour with F1.

The plan for a grand motorsport facility between Brisbane and the Gold Coast is still, according to its proponents, in play too.

The IMETT (Integrated Motorsport, Education, Tourism and Technology) project was to have been the headquarters for what was to have been the first Rally Australia on the country's east coast in 2008 but it never got to first base.

However, IMETT (which also appears sometimes as i-METT) claims its "Queensland motorsport 'mecca' is still on the horizon", despite striking hurdles with its environmental impact statement (EIS) and the "significant project" status the project had since February 2008 having lapsed.

The new debate about the merits and demerits of temporary versus permanent circuits comes as 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button and V8 Supercar star Craig Lowndes swap cars today at Bathurst -- Australia's most revered circuit, on public roads that are closed off for a few days a year for motor racing.

(The Button-Lowndes swap is a brilliant publicity exercise but not sport; it is intended purely to generate exposure for Vodafone, which is the sponsor of both Button's McLaren-Mercedes F1 team and Lowndes' Triple Eight Race Engineering V8 Supercar team).

The essence of the debate about circuits is about events on temporary street tracks in the middle of major population centres -- like Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Adelaide and Homebush in Sydney that usually have terrific atmosphere but come at huge cost to governments, and therefore taxpayers, with little lasting benefit -- versus permanent circuits that don't cause anywhere near as much public disruption and can have year-round benefits for motorsport, the motor industry and as driver training centres.

As Melbourne gears up for its 16th F1 GP this weekend amid a storm over its cost (now running at $50 million a year to Victorian taxpayers, and tipped by the city's lord mayor Robert Doyle to blow out to $70 million a year by the end of the existing contract), Ecclestone has been quoted saying that the city should have constructed a purpose-built track years ago.

Ecclestone was quoted by Australian Associated Press recently saying that, in retrospect, he and Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker agree that when the Australian GP moved from Adelaide to Melbourne in the mid-1990s it should not have been run at the Albert Park street circuit.

Walker has always said that Albert Park's lake setting and proximity to the city was integral to Melbourne securing the GP.

However, AAP said Ecclestone was still open to the idea of constructing a new track as part of extending Melbourne's F1 contract beyond 2015.

"Ron and I have spoken about this a long, long time ago and I suppose in reality it would have been the right thing to do," Ecclestone said.

"It would have been cheaper (then) than it would be today, but of course we would (consider it now)."

Might there yet be a major upgrade of Bob Jane's Calder Park, in Melbourne's north-west and which hosted events in the early 1980s that were the forerunner of Adelaide's GP, or Sandown in the city's east -- or even an all-new venue?

It could be said that it is easy for 80-year-old Ecclestone to say what he has, particularly now, as it would not be his F1 empire footing the bill for a new permanent circuit after the enormous losses that have been incurred at Albert Park.

This author has commented on that ugly picture -- and that of the former Gold Coast Indy -- here previously, including this article (click here).

And, just weeks after saying F1 didn't need an Australian GP in the wake of mayor Doyle's attack on the Albert Park event, Ecclestone said Australia "was an important to us as Monaco".

"It's part of the world championship and has been for an awful long time (since 1985). We'd hate to think that we're going to lose Australia," he said.

The idea of a permanent facility in south-east Queensland -- a rapidly-growing area which for two decades was home to an American Indy race -- makes a lot of sense, although the IMETT proposal has always seemed far-fetched. This author queried it here.

almost four years ago and, after the revival of Rally Australia was delayed until 2009 in NSW's Northern Rivers region and now its move to the Coffs Coast this September, we had not heard a peep about it since.

But a visit to imett.com.au tells us that IMETT managing director Ron Brown is still hopeful of getting it off the ground.

According to the site, the project -- still with the $650 million tag -- is about "a state-of-the-art motor racing circuit that will be among the best in the world" and "designed by world-famous architect Hermann Tilke" -- the Ecclestone-sanctioned circuit creator responsible for many of the modern F1 tracks widely criticised for producing dull racing.

The proposed site is 595 hectares 40km south of Brisbane, at Gilberton near Norwell and Ormeau and close to the motorway and rail line.

A March 1 announcement on the site says that IMETT Group Pty Ltd will submit the project to the Queensland government again.

MD Brown said he was disappointed that the state's Department of Planning and Infrastructure's co-ordinator-general had not been satisfied with IMETT's EIS as the company "had been working closely with the government for some time and had adjusted the EIS document to address changing government requirements on several occasions".

In mid-December Brown said IMETT "can only assume the decision is a mistake".

"If this isn't the case it is quite a significant sacrifice in terms of employment and private sector investment," he said. "However, this is unequivocally not the end of the road for IMETT -- in fact it's far from it."

While the IMETT proposal still sounds overly ambitious -- certainly without substantial government money, and whether government should bankroll such projects is another debate -- a permanent base for motorsport in the Norwell area makes a load of sense, especially as, after 20 years of Indy on the streets of Surfers' Paradise, there has been such a fuss that Gold Coast karters don't have a venue.

In NSW the coalition that looks certain to be swept into government this weekend has been opposed to the Homebush street race that now concludes the V8 Supercar Championship each year, although it concedes it is obliged to see out the remaining three years of the contract.

While the Liberals led by Barrie O'Farrell have publicly favoured the V8 Supercars returning to the permanent Eastern Creek circuit, a grander upgrade -- particularly in terms of public transport -- may be needed beyond the $9 million already pledged by the Labor government to make that workable.

In South Australia there is a squabble over where a new permanent motorsport facility, including a drag strip, ought to be located.

Motorsport Minister Kevin Foley is opposed to it being at Gillman in his Port Adelaide electorate; preferring it to go about 85km south-east of Adelaide to the old Mitsubishi testing site at Tailem Bend.

Foley has admitted to a heated confrontation with Port Adelaide Enfield mayor Gary Johanson in the SA government's suite at last weekend's Clipsal 500.

There also reportedly is a third proposal for a new motorsport facility in the state, in the Riverland, although none of these sites -- if any become reality -- are likely to stage  major international events.

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