{"id":14247,"date":"2011-11-13T07:21:05","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T12:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=14247"},"modified":"2011-11-13T07:21:05","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T12:21:05","slug":"austin-hits-back-at-ecclestone-pessimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/austin-hits-back-at-ecclestone-pessimism\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin hits back at Ecclestone pessimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Circuit of the Americas has hit back at Bernie Ecclestone&#8217;s claim that Texas might fall off the 2012 calendar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Austin?\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t want to put my money down that that will happen,&#8221; the F1 chief executive said in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p>Ecclestone referred to apparent differences within the event&#8217;s organisational bodies, but Circuit of the Americas president Steve Sexton said he was confused by the 81-year-old&#8217;s comments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no question that if he wants the USGP race to happen here in 2012, it certainly will,&#8221; he said in a statement published by the local Austin American Statesman.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our funding is secured, and construction is on schedule, so we don&#8217;t understand Mr Ecclestone&#8217;s comments.\u00a0 He has expressed great interest in the Austin race and in expanding the F1 brand into the United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Texas project was the brainchild of Tavo Hellmund, but his role as apparently dwindled in recent months as he looks at new possibilities in Mexico, Argentina and Africa.<\/p>\n<p>He said on Saturday: &#8220;It is now the responsibility of the Circuit of the Americas to make this project happen before Mr Ecclestone&#8217;s patience runs out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And Hellmund told The National newspaper last week: &#8220;I don&#8217;t plan to be a track operator.\u00a0 My mission has always been to put the whole deal together and get it going and then continue to broaden my horizons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Circuit of the Americas has hit back at Bernie Ecclestone&#8217;s claim that Texas might fall off the 2012 calendar. &#8220;Austin?\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t want to put my money down that that will happen,&#8221; the F1 chief executive said in Abu Dhabi. Ecclestone referred to apparent differences within the event&#8217;s organisational bodies, but Circuit of the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,3011,5262,5340,3372,1720,3373],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14248,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions\/14248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}