MOTORSPORT: Victorian premier keen to keep GP

Despite continual media reports about the cost of the GP and questions about whether it is value for money, Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu, gave it his support at a function in Melbourne today in the lead up to this year’s world championship opening round at the city’s Albert Park street circuit in mid-March.

Testing for the new season starts at Spain’s Jerez circuit tonight. The Mercedes factory team’s W04 for Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg and the Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso STR8 (for Australian Daniel Ricciardo and Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne) were the latest of this year’s cars unveiled last night.

Baillieu said Victoria wanted to negotiate an extension to Victoria’s existing GP contract, that would take the race into a third decade in Melbourne (after 11 years in Adelaide), and Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott said the talks would begin later this year.

“There are three more races under the current contracts and we will see out those and commence discussions at an appropriate time," Baillieu said.

“I say again the GP has been good for this state, good for this city and is a key part of our major events calendar - and that calendar gives Victoria a competitive edge… I am very confident that the GP has been good for Melbourne and Victoria, will be good for Melbourne and Victoria.

“We intend to do whatever we can to ensure our major events calendar remains strong and the GP has been a part of that and we look forward to it being a part in the future.

“The benefits are very substantial… We need to weigh up the benefits and we will endeavour to get the best possible deal we can.”

Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper reported in late January that Victoria paid Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management a $31 million fee for the race in 2011 and $32.6 million last year. The fee, the outlet stated will rise to $34.2 million this year, S35.9 million next year and $37.7 million in 2015.

The total loss on the event last year was more than $57 million, reflecting the annual costs of setting up the temporary venue and then dismantling it and that ticket sales and sponsorship have not grown strongly enough over the years.

As one of the ageing Minardi F1 two-seater cars “skated” on a Melbourne ice rink this morning, watch maker Rolex was announced as the sponsor of next month’s race.

Organisers claimed the sponsorship “demonstrates the weight and importance” of the event and Baillieu said it was “incredibly exciting” and “a wonderful result”.

But it is not a deal secured by the AGPC. Rather it is part of Rolex’s new global partnership with F1, is only for this year’s race, and most if not all of the sponsorship fee will go to the F1 empire – now largely owned by private equity firm CVC (which retains octogenarian Ecclestone at the helm).

The Herald Sun’s highly-respected financial commentator Terry McCrann wrote on January 24 that last year Qantas was given the race’s title sponsorship for just $100,000 - barely enough to paint the airline’s name and logo on the track signage.

Even if the Rolex deal puts more than that through the AGPC’s coffers it surely won’t come anywhere near Kia’s latest sponsorship of the Australian Open tennis, also in Melbourne annually and reportedly worth up to $50 million over the next five years.

Clearly peeved by the negativity that now dogs the GP, particularly at this time of year, AGPC chief Westacott tried to emphasise its benefits in a follow-up radio interview today.

He claimed annual economic impact of $39 million and he valued international branding through the race telecast at $36 million, for a total of $75 million – way short of the far grander claims traditionally made by AGPC chairman Ron Walker. Even if the branding benefit can be quantified it is not a whole lot more than the overall cost now.

Westacott said that ticket sales this year were “really good” – a perennial claim, usually not borne out later in the year when the AGPC’s annual report is tabled in the Victorian parliament.

In coming days the AGPC and Tourism Victoria will partner to make an ad featuring an F1 car on the state’s Great Ocean Rd, but to be driven within public road speed limits.

The car is to be filmed near sights such as the Twelve Apostles, the unusual rocky outcrops in Bass Strait just off the Victorian coast.

Tourism Victoria has not previously been involved in any major international marketing around the GP, perhaps as AGPC chairman Walker had always claimed the race was “advertising that money couldn’t buy”, but that if it could it would have been worth $100 million or more a year.

Meanwhile, the Toro Rosso STR8 that will be given its track debut at Jerez tonight by Daniel Ricciardo is the Italian-based team’s first car created by its new technical team headed by Brit James Key and chief designer Luca Furbatto.

Toro Rosso is eyeing sixth place in the constructors’ championship, having slipped to ninth last season with the initially promising but ultimately disappointing STR7.

Team principal Franz Tost has high hopes now that Ricciardo and Vergne each have a full season of F1 with Toro Rosso under the belts.

Ricciardo, 22, said he was “a more confident person and driver, with more self-belief than last year” – when he scored 10 points from six top 10 finishes, compared with Vergne’s 16 points from three eighth places.

“I’ve always had the desire and determination to succeed and now I’m ready to reinforce that and let everyone see what I’m all about,” he said.

“I spent most of the [northern] winter ‘Down Under’ and when I came back into the factory in Faenza I could feel a very positive atmosphere with everyone excited about the new car.

“The target for us this year is very simple: to improve on last year.”

Vergne said he had detected “a new philosophy within Toro Rosso” since the shake-up of its engineering team in the middle of last year and that it was now “going in a better direction”.

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, who has held his position amid speculation about his future under new Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff (still a 16 per cent shareholder in the Williams team), said the W04 was “a clear step forward in design and detail sophistication over its predecessor” – in which Michael Schumacher could not win, although Rosberg was victorious in last year’s Chinese GP.

Formula1.com reports that the W04 has a “new five-element front wing design and a second-generation Coanda exhaust at the rear of the car (rather than the sides)”.

“The car retains pushrod front suspension and a pullrod rear suspension (which the team says is to optimise tyre life and performance), while the rear end has been aggressively packaged to optimise aerodynamic development potential,” it said.

“Mercedes also has followed in the footsteps of several other teams in ditching the stepped nose design of last year’s car in favour of a small ‘vanity panel’, which was found to offer a small gain during aerodynamic testing.”

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