The long-serving chairman of Australia’s grand prix in Melbourne is stepping down.<\/p>\n
Ron Walker, a stalwart of the almost twenty-year-old Albert Park race and a close friend and political ally of Bernie Ecclestone, will retire after the 2015 event.<\/p>\n
“I’m 75 this year and it’s good governance to let someone fresh take the reins,” he told News Limited publications in Australia.<\/p>\n
Walker, a former Melbourne lord mayor and a multimillionaire businessman, selected his own replacement, current cricket world cup chairman John Harnden.<\/p>\n
“It’s not public knowledge,” said Walker.\u00a0 “We haven’t made the announcements, because we wanted to continue to do what we do without any fanfare.”<\/p>\n
The fact that Harnden will only take over for the 2016 race is a clear sign that Melbourne wants to keep the grand prix beyond its 2015 contract.<\/p>\n
Walker, who was recently battling lung cancer, revealed last week that he has negotiated a basic new deal with Ecclestone.<\/p>\n
“I think the foreplay is over so to speak and it’s now a case of talking to the government about whether it is worth it or not,” he is quoted by the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
“I think everyone in the government wants the race.\u00a0 The assessment is going to be made over the price,” Walker added.<\/p>\n
He told News Limited: “We are asking for three extra years.\u00a0 We are not like the Arab states and some other countries — we have to be very careful the way we spend taxpayers’ money.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The long-serving chairman of Australia’s grand prix in Melbourne is stepping down. Ron Walker, a stalwart of the almost twenty-year-old Albert Park race and a close friend and political ally of Bernie Ecclestone, will retire after the 2015 event. “I’m 75 this year and it’s good governance to let someone fresh take the reins,” he …<\/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":[1100,5262,5340,1160],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21327"}],"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=21327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21328,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21327\/revisions\/21328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}