{"id":17061,"date":"2012-11-14T06:41:59","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T11:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=17061"},"modified":"2012-11-14T06:41:59","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T11:41:59","slug":"ecclestone-wants-many-more-us-races-on-f1-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/ecclestone-wants-many-more-us-races-on-f1-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecclestone wants many more US races on F1 schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernie Ecclestone has hinted he wants many more American races on his F1 calendar.<\/p>\n

\"Bernie-Ecclestone-2\"After a five-year absence from the country, F1 has returned to the US in 2012, this weekend christening the brand-new and bespoke Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

And Ecclestone wanted two American stops on next year’s schedule, until plans for a street race amid the Manhattan skyline were put on hold for financial reasons until at least 2014.<\/p>\n

“It’s a world championship, so you need the US,” the F1 chief executive is quoted by German news agency DPA.<\/p>\n

“America is about as big as Europe.\u00a0 So we should have the same number of races (in each),” said Ecclestone.<\/p>\n

In 2013, seven of the 19 grands prix – Spain, Monaco, the UK, Germany, Hungary, Belgium and Italy – will be in Europe, the sport’s traditional homeland.<\/p>\n

For now, many in the F1 paddock are simply relieved that the US is back on the calendar at least with one race — Norbert Haug pointed out this week that it is Mercedes-Benz’s single biggest road car sales market.<\/p>\n

But F1 chief executive Ecclestone acknowledged that his sport is “not very big” in America, causing the US-naturalised Mario Andretti to proclaim: “I can only say thank god for the Texans!”<\/p>\n

“This,” agreed McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh, “is a golden opportunity for the sport to finally put down roots and find a long-term home (in the US).”<\/p>\n

After contractual and construction delays, the Circuit of the Americas is a hive of activity in the hours before the F1 paddock comes alive on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Signs, seats and landscaping are still being finished off, circuit spokeswoman Julie Loignon admitting: “Things are very hectic, but everyone is making steady progress.”<\/p>\n

Michael Schumacher, a regular visitor to the US, is already in town, kicking off his stay by watching the NBA basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, according to Bild newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u00a9<\/em> <\/span>RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernie Ecclestone has hinted he wants many more American races on his F1 calendar. After a five-year absence from the country, F1 has returned to the US in 2012, this weekend christening the brand-new and bespoke Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. And Ecclestone wanted two American stops on next year’s schedule, until plans …<\/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":[59,3011,5262,5340,92],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17061"}],"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=17061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17062,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17061\/revisions\/17062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}