"The FIA must take action to keep the promoters healthy"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Because the first seven Grands Prix of the season have been postponed or cancelled due to the corona virus, there are a lot of costs that are now made for nothing. The promoters of the Grands Prix have to make a lot of expenses to get the infrastructure ready for a Grand Prix on top of the huge amount of money they have to spend to be able to organize the Grand Prix. One of the promoters now has announced that the F1 has to take action.
“They have to be willing to accept lower fees if they want their promoters to be healthy", one of the F1 promoters tells The Independent. “We reserve hundreds of buses which have to be booked 90 days before the race and have cancellation fees.”
Much more costs
"We also have another contract for traffic because we have to hire hundreds of police officers for the race weekend and this also includes cancellation fees. On top of that we also have to set up temporary stands and hospitality stores, which is already starting around eight months before the Grand Prix. The moment a race takes another six weeks to start, we already spend one million euros a week to prepare for it."
Ticket revenues are normally the most important revenue source, but these revenues are also less than expected at the moment. "Normally we would have sold most tickets by now. Most buyers are from out of town and they can't make any last minute changes". So according to this promoter, it is important that F1 and the FIA start thinking about keeping their promoters financially healthy.