Hockenheim Latest F1 Venue To Suffer

The German Grand Prix is the latest F1 venue to look over its shoulder after the managing director of the Hockenheim circuit warned that the track was in ‘acute danger’ of falling off the sport’s calendar.

The Hockenheim circuit currently alternates hosting the German Grand Prix with the Nurburgring; with the country having reverted to hosting just one F1 race annually from 2007 so that both venues could share the increasingly high costs of staging a Grand Prix.

However, Hockenheim circuit manager Karl-Josef Schmidt has raised major doubts over whether the track has a long-term future in F1 unless it receives financial help from the state government.

Hockenheim is next scheduled to stage the event in 2010, the final year of its contract with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

The economy ministry of state government Baden-Wuerttemberg has already said that it does not want to take on the €5.3m losses racked up by this year’s race, leaving Hockenheim’s future under threat.

Despite the presence of national carmakers BMW and Mercedes plus five home drivers currently on the grid, German interest in F1 has waned in recent years, with TV viewer figures down since Michael Schumacher’s retirement in 2006.

Hockenheim was already experiencing a dip in ticket sales even before the seven-time world champion’s F1 exit. But while the Nurburgring does benefit from some form of state funding, Schmidt says even there ‘the limit of resilience has been achieved’.

Indeed he warns that unless Ecclestone lowers his race hosting fee demands, there is a real risk that a German round will fall off future schedules altogether. 

Said Schmidt: “‘Formula 1 will just disappear from Hockenheim, but from Germany generally. Then it will only run in Arab countries.’

The doubts over Hockenheim future come just weeks after two other regular fixtures on the calendar, France and Canada, announced they would be unable to hold races in 2009.

While France’s motorsport federation cancelled its country’s race due to the economic downturn, Montreal government officials attempted to save its event but claimed Ecclestone’s ‘unreasonable demands’ meant the city was unable to come up with a rescue deal.

New races in the likes of China, Abu Dhabi and India are replacing many of the traditional F1 venues as the sport looks to move to countries with more financial muscle.