Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bernie quietly ditches the Canadian GP. The race is absent from the 2009 calendar put out by the FIA today - and that is all we are told. It is surely indicative of how little the governing body and its masters care for those who actually follow the sport - we are not worth an announcement or prior warning, apparently.
Canadian GP 2008
There were some indications earlier this year that the race might be under threat but it went ahead and everything seemed to be sorted out. The demise of the USGP meant that Montreal could no longer share the expense of bringing F1 to North America with Indianapolis and this caused a few murmurings. Yet everything went quiet after that and this sudden cancellation seems precipitate, to say the least. Negotiations may have been going on in the background but the fans have not been given a hint of trouble.
One is tempted to think that this may be one of Bernie's ploys to put pressure on the organizers. It is typical of his style to blackmail circuits in such a way and he may be demonstrating his willingness to cut the race if his demands are not met. Easy enough for him to say, "Oops, did we leave out Canada?" if the organizers find some extra cash. This would be the first time that a GP were dropped without any prior indication whatsoever, after all.
If that is so, it is time that Bernie took his games and played elsewhere. We saw how his strategy failed to extract more money from the Indy organizers and we have no USGP now as a result. There has been some outrage amongst the manufacturer teams at this, particularly as the amount offered by Tony George came very close to what Bernie was asking - some sponsors have said that they would happily have paid the difference if only they had known what was going on.
But Bernie does not seem to have learned the lesson. If there have been negotiations with the Canadian organizers, they have been even more secret than those at Indy. This surely indicates that the little dictator becomes ever more convinced that he has the right to include or scrap GPs as and when he sees fit. The fans must just accept what he offers and continue to pay whatever he asks.
It is not as if I do not understand the pressures on Ecclestone, either. He has managed to sell the sport to the faceless investor that is CVC and they become nervous at the amount they are having to pay back in interest on their loans. Bernie has to maximize income to keep his employers happy. But that is hardly the concern of the sport; if CVC has over-reached itself, that is their problem and they deserve whatever comes of the economic downturn.
In fact, it makes no sense to cancel the Canadian GP for economic reasons. Even if the organizers cannot pay as much as Bernie is asking, at least they are prepared to pay a substantial amount - and that is money CVC will not see if there is no GP. It looks to me as though Bernie has made a serious miscalculation this time, alienating the fans, the organizers and even his paymasters in one fell swoop.
The whole episode shows once more how wrong it is for one man to have all the power of authorizing GPs. We have allowed him this because we are so often told that he built the sport into the multi-million dollar industry it has become. But that is not all it is; it remains a sport that was in existence long before Bernie added it to his empire and it will still be here if CVC collapses overnight.
There are some things about F1 that you cannot change without the sport becoming something else entirely. One of these is the nature of certain circuits - get rid of Monaco, Spa and a few others and the thing will no longer be watchable. A succession of Tilkedromes will not retain the huge audience that has grown over the years. Lose the audience and Bernie, CVC and everyone involved in the sport goes bankrupt.
I am not saying that F1 cannot survive without the Montreal circuit - there is no doubt that it can. But the way in which the GP has been summarily cut from the calendar leaves everyone wondering whether anything is sacred. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may have had its problems but it is much loved even so, being the last outpost of F1 in North America and a place that often gives surprising results that shake up the season. If Bernie is adamant that it has to go, it may be the catalyst for his own departure, a cause for the manufacturer teams to unite around. They know where their largest market is, even if Bernie does not.
And that is the insanity of this decision. While the manufacturers have been pressing for the return of the USGP and the signs are optimistic for its reinstatement, Bernie is so detached from reality that he burns another North American bridge. Even if it is just a negotiating ploy, it risks severe disillusionment with a large sector of F1 participants and enthusiasts, thereby hastening the day when CVC will have to replace the man who destroyed F1 racing in the States.
This cannot continue for long. While the racing gets better every year, the governing bodies are revealed as the incompetent, corrupt and greedy organizations they have become. The cancellation of the Canadian GP must surely be one more step towards complete re-organization of the way F1 is governed. Let those who care examine the fate of open wheel racing in the continent F1 has abandoned and let them fear for the future.