Austin’s formula one project is close to collapse, with Bernie Ecclestone saying the event will fall off the 2012 calendar “for sure”.<\/p>\n
With the Texas state funding also in jeopardy and track construction halted, the main problem is a disagreement between Tavo Hellmund – who held the original race contract – and the separate company that is building the Circuit of the Americas.<\/p>\n
Asked by the Press Association if the impasse means Austin will be erased from next year’s race schedule at the World Council meeting next month, F1 chief executive Ecclestone admitted: “Yes, it will be, for sure.”<\/p>\n
He insisted: “We’ve done everything we bloody well can do to make this race happen.”<\/p>\n
Ecclestone explained that the circuit cannot simply negotiate to have the contract transferred from Hellmund, because “we’ve cancelled Tavo’s contract as he was in breach”.<\/p>\n
And “these other people haven’t got a contract,” he said.\u00a0 “All we’ve asked them to do is get us a letter of credit.<\/p>\n
“If people don’t have the money they find it difficult to get the letter of credit, and so we don’t issue a contract,” said Ecclestone.<\/p>\n
He told the Independent that if the Circuit of the Americas gets its act together, it could sign a new contract for “10 years from 2013”.<\/p>\n
But the Daily Express quotes Ecclestone as saying: “I would be surprised if it happened.”<\/p>\n
The local Austin American Statesman reports that the heavy machinery and “even the portable toilets” were being removed from the site on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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