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[Gaz]

Nice and early start to the season!

yep only a little only 3 months..

[emma]

Nice and early start to the season!

yep only a little only 3 months..

Still too long

[Gaz]

Nice and early start to the season!

yep only a little only 3 months..

Still too long

A1GP?

...good stop gap i guess.

[McLaren Fan]

From autosport.com:

Teams to ask for calendar changes

By Edd Straw and Dieter Rencken Sunday, September 27th 2009, 11:34 GMT

Formula 1 teams are to write to the FIA and the sport's commercial chiefs to request that changes are made to next year's calendar, as AUTOSPORT revealed earlier today.

Teams are concerned about logisitcal problems caused by the fact that the Monaco and Turkish grands prix will run back-to-back on May 23 and May 30, with the Canadian Grand Prix just two weeks later.

Members of the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) met in Singapore on Sunday afternoon to discuss the matter, and the outfits have all agreed that something needs to be done by the sport's organisers.

FOTA vice-chairman John Howett told AUTOSPORT: "We want to write to the federation and to the commercial rights holder to say that we're really happy to race in Turkey, but that there are some changes in terms of the logistics.

"[We will] ask to review that to minimise our cost burden and simplify the logistics, particularly with Canada so close after Turkey."

Howett added that FOTA also has question marks over the Korean Grand Prix, which has been scheduled for next October.

"We want to clarify the actual economic benefit of Korea based on it being the 19th race," said Howett.

FOTA also discussed the agreement not to run KERS next season following Williams technical director Sam Michael saying earlier in the week that the team was still considering it.

As the KERS "ban" will be by agreement, provision for running it remains in the 2010 regulations, and Williams was suspended from FOTA when the agreement was originally reached.

"We agreed to uphold our previous decision not to race KERS in 2010 and we are working now on 2011.

"Because the cost pressure makes it difficult for KERS, we are looking at a total range of environmental packages for 2011 and an economically viable KERS alternative. We'll decided on that with less pressure in the coming weeks."

[headless]

I'm glad we end with Brazil.

[headless]

Just hope non of them are turned to night races

[Hanwombat]

I wonder ....

[McLaren Fan]

From F1 Live:

The obstacle standing in the way of a final deal for the Canadian Grand Prix is tax, according to Montreal's French-language daily La Presse.

The report said Bernie Ecclestone wants to receive the payments of the Quebec, Ottawa and Montreal authorities over the next five years but not pay federal tax. It is said the F1 chief executive is holding back his signature until he receives a written guarantee about the issue from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Additionally, Ecclestone, who will certainly become the event's promoter, also wishes to take all the money generated by ticket sales and refund the sales tax portion at a later date. Canadian law stipulates that such amounts should not leave the country before the government's portion has been paid.

Raymond Bachand, handling the governments' F1 negotiations, said last Friday that "there are always complicated elements with a tentative agreement - which we have with Mr Ecclestone - when the lawyers put it down on paper... problems sometimes arise."

La Presse cited a well-informed source used to dealing with Ecclestone: "At one point he's going to say 'I give you 24 hours to sign the agreement' and he will arrange to be unreachable before the deadline.

"Politicians always end up with blood on their knees," the source added.

Federal Public Works Minister Christian Paradis however indicated he wanted an agreement "which respects the Canadian taxpayers," while a spokesman for the Minister indicated that "taxation rules do not depend on a politician's good will."

D.B. © CAPSIS International
Source: GMM

[7UpJordan]

Bernie's getting his excuses ready for if Montreal doesn't make a comeback afterall.

[stonemonkey]

:banghead: I see that Bernie is persisting with the stupid late start idea to suit the European audience.

It's good to see Canada back on the calendar Korea, another Hermann Tilke designed track, just what F1 needs

Every track he has designed is boring =(

I have a theory on that, it might be BS though.

I'm not calling the drivers artists but some of the best racing/moves have come from their creativity, Tilke seems to design his tracks to channel the moves to particular points on the track taking away any possibility of creativity.

As I said, might be BS.

[McLaren Fan]

From F1 Live:

The date of the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix will be a week earlier than originally scheduled to help ease concerns about next year's race calendar.

Although the date-change from the provisionally scheduled May 23 is yet to be confirmed either by Bernie Ecclestone's organisation or by the FIA, the Automobile Club de Monaco is now reporting that the 2010 event will take place on May 16.

The change will give teams more time to travel between the famous Principality and the next grand prix destination, Turkey, scheduled for May 30.

The news also all but confirms that Formula One will return to Canada next year.

Another possible solution to the Monaco-Turkey problem was that the latter race could be delayed by a week if Ecclestone's talks with Montreal race promoters did not come to fruition.

The fact that Monaco is having to be held a week early indicates that the Turkey date switch could not take place, ostensibly because Canada's June 13 race date is now set in stone.

The Monaco Grand Prix is traditionally held on the Sunday after the week of Ascension Day. In 2010, Ascension Day is May 13, which means that local shops will now be closed on the Thursday before the race.

Source: GMM
© CAPSIS International

[EwanM]

They didn't need to do that. All they needed to do was scrap the Korean Gp

[Jabberwocky]

james allan website reports

Incidentally I’ve just found out that next year’s calendar has been changed. It looks like they have moved the Monaco Grand Prix back one week to 16th May. It was originally scheduled to be 23rd May as the first half of a back to back with Turkey, but logistically that was tricky. The following race is in Montreal two weeks after Turkey. I was alerted to it by a hotel, but it’s confirmed on the Automobile Club of Monaco website, even though nothing has been officially announced by Formula 1 management.

[McLaren]

Monaco GP bought forwrd in revised 2010 calender

2010 FIA Formula One World Championship calendar
14 March - Bahrain
28 March - Australia
4 April - Malaysia
18 April - China
9 May - Spain
16 May - Monaco
30 May - Turkey
13 June - Canada**
27 June - Europe (Valencia)
11 July - Great Britain*
25 July - Germany
1 August - Hungary
29 August - Belgium
12 September - Italy
26 September - Singapore
3 October - Japan*
17 October - Korea*
31 October - Abu Dhabi†
14 November - Brazil†

[henners88]

I'm glad to see on the latest version of the calendar that Abu Dhabi has moved places with Interlagos... Good move IMO, as the party atmosphere at the end of the season in Brazil is hard to replicate elsewhere. If the WDC goes down to the wire again next season, then I'm sure the drivers will want to spray champagne on the podium rather than sparkling apple juice.. That aside, the impression of the Abu Dhabi track seems quite spectacular IMO... Once you look beyond the desert car park feel, the grandstands look really impressive. Just hope there enough rich people to fill them, unlike Bahrain..