Opposition already risingFormula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has warned the Australian Grand Prix will be moved overseas unless the race is held at night in a move designed to boost global TV ratings, reports said Sunday.
Melbourne's contract to host the Australian
GP expires in 2010 but Ecclestone is pressing organisers to stage the race around the Albert Park street circuit under lights.
Earlier this month Singapore clinched a five-year contract to host a race from next year with Ecclestone saying he was confident safety issues would be resolved to allow night-racing.
The Malaysian Grand Prix is also set to be held under lights under the terms of an imminent new contract.
But the issue of night racing is not so cut and dried in Australia, reports said.
"When the contract comes up, we have to have a look and see exactly what we will be doing with Melbourne," Ecclestone told Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun newspaper.
"Unless they (organisers) can come up with something satisfactory, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to continue there. I would like to make sure we can watch (the race) in Europe and other parts of the world at a respectable time rather than having to get up at three or four in the morning."
But the newspaper says that Australian event organisers do not see a night race as a priority.
"I don't think it is going to happen," one insider told the newspaper. "To have F1 cars hooning (roaring) around Albert Park at 9:00 pm won't go down well with the locals and it's a family event, so afternoon is obviously the ideal time."
At the time of the last Australian GP in March Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker insisted Ecclestone was not delivering Australian race organisers with an ultimatum on night racing.
"I am not saying for a minute it is going to happen but you have got to consider all things to improve the sport," Walker told reporters.
Walker said there was much work to be done before any decision was taken, including conducting a feasibility study to determine whether the circuit could be sufficiently lit to safely hold a F1 race.
The Australian GP has been hemorrhaging financially since it was shifted from Adelaide in 1996, with one economist estimating the race would lose more than 230 million dollars (190 million US) by the time the current contract expires in 2010.
Ecclestone told the newspaper Walker was aware of his demands for a new contract.
"Ron is not stupid and he knows exactly what is at stake," he said. "It seems that Melbourne tried to get behind F1 and always has done, but the rest of Australia doesn't seem to get behind it."
Reports said the Australian race's television audience around the world has fallen from 339 million in 1999 to 82 million.
The Victorian state government, which financially underpins the GP in Melbourne, said no negotiations on switching to a night race were underway.
"The contract runs until 2010, but we haven't begun negotiating that yet," a spokesman for Tourism Minister Tim Holding told the newspaper. "And a night Grand Prix has never been formally proposed. Ultimately, the Victorian government will decide what is best for Melbourne."
Source AFP
