Bernie Ecclestone has doubtless raised the ire of a number of F1 traditionalists, by insisting that there was no chance of him easing the financial requirements for Spa-Francorchamps to help it remain on the F1 calendar.
Bernie was speaking about the perceived threat to more "traditional" (i.e. older) tracks on the F1 schedule, with races such as the German GP and this weekend's Belgian GP unsure of a long-term future due to the tracks struggling financially. Earlier this year, the Hockenheim track said that it could well have to abandon it's part of the contract to run the German race after suffering major losses on last year's event, while the Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps are both in similar positions.
The issue revolves around the money that circuit owners have to pay to Bernie Ecclestone and the FOM in order to secure a spot on the calendar. This somewhat questionable levy is made possible by the high competition for places on the schedule, but means that any tracks that fail to sell out their ticket allocations run the risk of running at a significant loss.
According to reports, less than 55,000 tickets have been sold for Sunday's running at Spa this weekend, a situation that would translate into a multi-million pound loss for the track and it's promoters.
Despite their struggles, Bernie has insisted that they will still need to compete with other venues for their place on the calendar.
"I love Belgium and I would be very happy to keep Spa, a wonderful traditional race, on the calendar," Bernie told the Belgian newspaper La Libre this week.
Spa's position on the calendar is ostensibly fairly secure, with a contract in place to keep it in the schedule until at least 2012, but questions remain about the willingness of the local government to put up with such high yearly losses from the event.
"That's normal,” Ecclestone shrugged, “Governments in other countries pay much more and I have at least five requests for new races outside of Europe. The value of F1 is high.
"If you want to drive a Mercedes, you have to earn your money and pay dearly." He added, rather oddly.
One option currently being discussed is for the Belgian and German races to share a spot on the calendar in the future, with races alternating between Spa and the Nurburgring every year, but Ecclestone said that any such agreement was a long way from being in place.
"We are thinking about this solution," Ecclestone nodded, "but nothing is decided."
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