A local MP in the Melbourne area of Australia has said that the country should give up their grand prix at the end of the current contract, saying that the race had outlived its usefulness to the region in recent years.
The future of the Australian event has been up for debate since earlier this year, when the Melbourne mayor Robert Doyle first suggested that the Albert Park track should ditch the race at the end of its current contract.
The current deal with Bernie Ecclestone and FOM guarantees the race a slot on the calendar until 2015.
And now Michael Danby, the MP for the Melbourne Ports division in the Australian House of Representatives, has backed up Doyle's comments.
"The grand prix may have been a good deal in 1996, when it cost the government only $1.7 million; but, with falling crowd numbers and taxpayers footing a $50 million-a-year bill, the government should cut its losses and walk away," Danby told the Australian parliament according to quotes from the Reuters news agency.
He added: "Rising costs, dwindling crowds, fed-up local residents, an ambivalent Melbourne mayor... to me, everything points to Melbourne saying 'thanks for the memories' but gracefully declining to renew the grand prix contract."
Doyle's comments already led Ecclestone to suggest that he would be happy to drop the race in future, given the huge competition for slots on the F1 schedule at the moment.
Meanwhile, another race facing an uncertain future is the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
Artur Mas, the new president of the government of the Catalonia region of the country told the El Pais newspaper that the long-term future of the race was far from certain.
"The continuity of the Formula One race at this circuit is guaranteed this year and probably also for the next," Mas explained during the current Barcelona test.
But he added: "I hope it can be sustained for the future, but that will depend on the evolution of the economic situation and the results obtained in the next two years.
"The situation is what it is; I'm not here to fool anybody. I know the value of hosting an F1 race and motor racing is a sector that drives the economy.
"I will do my best, but we cannot hide from the truth. We need to reduce the budgets."
The pressure on Barcelona, and F1's other Spanish-based race in Valencia, is high right now, with Ecclestone suggesting that he can no longer justify countries hosting two races per year.
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