Formula One oligarch Bernie Ecclestone has expressed his desire to see the two financially struggling Spanish race venues in Barcelona and Valencia share a slot on the calendar in the future, in order to cut their race fee costs.
Spain is the only country that currently enjoys two races on the Formula One schedule, with the Spanish GP in Barcelona joining the European GP in Valencia.
But in recent weeks, both venues have expressed their doubts over the long-term future of their races, as the current European financial crisis forced a reassessment of the finances of the races.
Valencia is currently contracted to host their race until 2014, but the local government which supports the race has racked up a public debt of over 20 billion Euros, and are keen to cut costs.
Meanwhile, the organisers of the Spanish GP at the Circuit de Catalunya have also admitted that their race faces an uncertain financial future.
The possibility of a slot-share deal has reportedly been discussed before, though organisers of the Valencia race apparently shunned the offer.
But Ecclestone believes that a renewed effort to come to an agreement over an alternating deal on the F1 schedule would be a good solution to the current situation.
"What’s been talked about more is that Barcelona would like to alternate with them (Valencia)," he told the UK Financial Times newspaper regarding the Spanish situation.
He added: "Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it's the way to go."
Any slot-sharing deal would not be an unprecedented solution, with the Nurburgring and Hockenheim tracks in Germany having shared responsibility for the German GP for a number of years.
Meanwhile, recent reports have linked the French GP with a return to the schedule through a similar alternating deal with the Belgian GP.
And any deal between the Spanish tracks would also be useful for Ecclestone's attempts to keep the F1 calendar capped at 20 races per season.
New races in New Jersey and Russia are already set to join the packed schedule in the coming years, and the FOM chief admitted that freeing up one of the current Spanish slots would be a good thing.
"It might help if we lost one or [the] other of the other races [in Spain]," he mused.
Ecclestone has also been pushing for races in Mexico and South Africa, while Argentina has recently posited a bid for a return to the F1 schedule in the future.
Should the Spanish venues share a slot from 2013, the same year the New Jersey race is added to the schedule, just seven of the 20 races that year would be based in Europe.
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