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A dark cloud has moved above the future of Azerbaijan's grand prix. Under ousted F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone's leadership, a street circuit in the historic capital Baku made its debut on the calendar last year.
The Azerbaijan race is back for 2017, but it is now under fire from Greg Maffei, the chief executive of the sport's new owners Liberty Media. He criticised the way Ecclestone used to select races for the calendar, saying that strategy was to say "'How much can I extract? How much upfront?"
"So we end up with races in places like Azerbaijan where they paid us a big race fee but it does nothing to build the long-term brand and health of the business," Maffei is quoted by Forbes' F1 business journalist Christian Sylt. "Our job is to find partners that pay us well but also help us to build the product," he added.
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
M. Verstappen
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Bahrain International Circuit
Saudi Arabia
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Replies (3)
Login to replytalktohenry
Posts: 362
I reckon when the bean counters take a look at the books, Liberty will end up with a similar strategy, as they won't turn down big fees from a new Country, he's taking total bull.
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
I agree with him. There's no sense in being penny-wise and pound-foolish. At the end of the day, it's about maintaining and building a brand, and I don't really see a race in Azerbaijan adding to that.
I'm really liking Liberty's approach thus far.
f1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
It's a shame that this track will fall into nothing because apart from the unnecessarily long straight, the track is awesome