28 replies to this topic

[engineblock1]

Out of curiosity i was checking the past states that had a GP - to get an idea where F1 has been in past. I noticed that now that F1 has spread nearly to all designated regions of world (North America, Middle East, Far east) but i could not see any of the Baltic or Balkan states to have a Grand Prix in past. This is bit surprising considering that these countries probably are still maybe economically stronger than some other regions who did host GPs.

Is it really the economics or any other reason that F1 never visited these countries?

[SenorSjon]

Hungary used to be the iron curtain-GP. After that, it lacked dictators to spend insane amounts on racing.

Baku being the exception since that is still counted as Europe.

[Clatter]

Does any of the countries have a suitable track? Have they ever applied?

[engineblock1]

Does any of the countries have a suitable track? Have they ever applied?

 

That's also perplexing considering they might have resources to build and host it. If Vietnam was eyeing a GP, surely Poland, Lithuania etc could have it too.

[Clatter]

That's also perplexing considering they might have resources to build and host it. If Vietnam was eyeing a GP, surely Poland, Lithuania etc could have it too.

They might not consider it good value for their money. Couldn't really blame them if they did.

[Risil]

Yugoslavia held motorcycle Grands Prix at Opatija and Rijeka until its break-up.

 

There was a Grand Prix in Belgrade in 1939 which while not part of the European championship was important enough for Alfa, Auto Union and Mercedes to send teams. Perhaps most notable for being the last international motor race before the outbreak of war in Europe.

 

Golden Era has this magnificently understated concluding paragraph from Hans Etzrodt:

 

Neubauer organized a caravan of all the German trucks. Off they went trying to reach the German border. With rumours that all fuel would be confiscated in Hungary the caravan instead chose to take some dirty country roads through Slavonia, Croatia and the mountains of Slovenia into Austria. To see through the dust the trucks had to leave a one mile gap between each other. Finally reaching the factory gates the trucks were confiscated by the German army. The great GP teams were no more.

 

http://www.goldenera.fi/gp396.htm#25

[JimmyClark]

The Baltic states have only become prosperous in the last decade, and their governments tend to spend sensibly rather than on grand projects. They don't really need the extra visibility a race would bring. 

 

As for the Balkans, Croatia is the only one that probably has the resources to stage a race, but it has an established tourism sector. This track was mooted a while back, but not sure if it was ever built? https://www.racefans...tia-lot-austin/

[Ivanhoe]

Pre WWII the calendar featured (non championship) Grands Prix in Romania (Bucharest), Yugoslavia (Beograd) and Czechoslovakia (Brno). They disappeared from the calendar with the advent of the iron curtain, with the exception of the Czechoslovakian GP in 1949.

[Anja]

That's also perplexing considering they might have resources to build and host it. If Vietnam was eyeing a GP, surely Poland, Lithuania etc could have it too.

 

For countries with not much racing culture, F1 is a tourism / PR exercise and not everyone wants to spend all that money just for that. European states are in general more conservative about this sort of "extravagant" spending. Unless there's some other kind of an impulse and/or a private initiative coming from a rich/influential racing enthusiast, it just doesn't appear on the horizon even as an idea. 

 

Since you mention Poland I'll allow myself to link my short summary of the Polish GP hopes in the late 70s - https://forums.autos...ing/?p=10175909

Edited by Anja, 25 July 2023 - 14:56.

[Alan Lewis]

Pre WWII the calendar featured (non championship) Grands Prix in Romania (Bucharest), Yugoslavia (Beograd) and Czechoslovakia (Brno). They disappeared from the calendar with the advent of the iron curtain, with the exception of the Czechoslovakian GP in 1949.

Also, the Lwow Grand Prix in Poland (now Lviv in Ukraine). Stuck and Caracciola both won there (pre-Silver Arrows).

[DevilDare]

That's also perplexing considering they might have resources to build and host it. If Vietnam was eyeing a GP, surely Poland, Lithuania etc could have it too.

 

Lithuania can't even build a multi-use national stadium...

[LolaB0860]

FIA GT had street race for GT1 and GT2 in Romania (Bucharest) back in 2007-2008, the track was even designed by Tilke

[Anderis]

If Vietnam was eyeing a GP, surely Poland, Lithuania etc could have it too.

Vietnam's economy is 6 time larger than Lithuania's. That's more important for these types of projects than how rich a country is per capita. Monaco says "hi" but they're an exception.

 

Poland might have had a chance if Kubica's F1 career had developed better. There was a lot of hype about F1 here around 2008 but it all faded away pretty quickly.

 

Is it really the economics or any other reason that F1 never visited these countries?

It's a mixture of factors. The motorsport culture not being strong in these countries but they also don't have these type of autocratic governments that are able to spend money on vanity projects. And from 1945 to 1991, there was the Iron Curtain, which made it more difficult to participate in events led mainly by Western countries.

Edited by Anderis, 25 July 2023 - 15:35.

[Risil]

Germany and France don't have Grands Prix either, it's probably worth saying.

[midgrid]

Just looking at the FIA circuit grades, there are no Grade 1 circuits in these regions.
 
The following circuits are Grade 2 (stretching the regional boundaries a little):

• Brno, Most (Czech Republic)
• Balaton Park (Hungary) [The Hungaroring is Grade 1 of course]
• Slovakia Ring (Slovakia)
• Anderstorp (Sweden)

The following are Grade 3:

• Tor Poznań (Poland)

And the following are Grade 4:

• Automotodrom Grobnik (Croatia)
• Jyllands-Ringen (Denmark)

In recent history, there were plans to build an F1-standard circuit in Greece (Patras), and the Kymi-Ring (Finland) was almost finished but appears to have become moribund.

[flatlandsman]

I would expect this is down to money and hosting fees.

 

Hungary was for may years backed by Marlboro who no doubt assisted a fair bit in that regard. 

 

Brno I always thought would be a superb venue, it certainly was for motoGP for decades, but I dont really know why it has dropped away, crowds were always good, perhaps a Covid thing. And maybe also needed grade improvements

[Leibowitz]

It was always interesting to me how Balkan is overrepresented in almost every other sport except moto racing. I guess lack of infrastructure plays a role.
F1 was very popular in Croatia in part due to proximity of Italy and due to fact that it was broadcasted on state TV so there was definitely an interest for F1 race.
I remember that there were talks back in 2010-11 about Croatia building an F1 track but it failed, probably due to combination of global recession and incompetence and corruption of people involved.
I don’t think that similar project is going to happen in the near future since the job of hosting an F1 race got even more competitive and some key people in F1 with ties to Croatia (Bernie) aren’t involved anymore. Also, F1 viewership took a hit after it started broadcasting on pay channels but I still believe that F1 track would generate massive interest and sell well.

[MikeTekRacing]

FIA had GT and F3 in Bucharest. I went to those races and they were super cool. They also had some support races and some F1 demo (I "think" it was a Jaguar or a Minardi, I remember the sound was incredible when that beast starting roaming). They also organized a Renault/ING even there and got to see Romain Grosjean do donuts and break a front wing while doing'em 

There is no infrastructure for an F1 race - and that's never been a priority for that part of the world. Making money back from investing in it will be hard in a world where you compete for a slot with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. 

[lustigson]

All three Baltic states have one circuit, according to RacingCircuits.info: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the latter being a street circuit. Neither appear to be fit for anything beyond club racing, to be honest.

[PayasYouRace]

Mr Snellman’s map is quite handy for pre WW2 Grands Prix.

 

https://www.goldenera.fi/map.htm

[Ruusperi]

Same could be asked about Finland. But the complete fiasco of Kymiring and its bankruptcy most likely mean there won't be another attempt to get Grade 1 circuit in Finland ever again. Not that there's any incentive for it, because Bottas will retire in a few years and it may take decades until next Finnish driver is in F1. That will drive away 90% of the viewers, who only watch F1 for patriotic reasons. Also the original plan of hosting MotoGP at Kymiring was silly, because I don't know any Finn who's interested in MotoGP nowadays.

 

Best period for Finnish GP would have been around ~2005. Kimi Räikkönen and Mika Kallio (125cc) were fighting for the championship, both F1 and MotoGP were broadcast Free-To-Air gathering millions of viewers, and Finland was swimming in money thanks to Nokia selling phones like crazy. But I don't remember there being any talks about building a new circuit at the time. Helsinki was supposed host a street GP in 2002 but for unknown reason it never materialized. Again in 2015 there were talks about a street race, but to no avail. This was the proposed layout.

[F1matt]

Same could be asked about Finland. But the complete fiasco of Kymiring and its bankruptcy most likely mean there won't be another attempt to get Grade 1 circuit in Finland ever again. Not that there's any incentive for it, because Bottas will retire in a few years and it may take decades until next Finnish driver is in F1. That will drive away 90% of the viewers, who only watch F1 for patriotic reasons. Also the original plan of hosting MotoGP at Kymiring was silly, because I don't know any Finn who's interested in MotoGP nowadays.

 

Best period for Finnish GP would have been around ~2005. Kimi Räikkönen and Mika Kallio (125cc) were fighting for the championship, both F1 and MotoGP were broadcast Free-To-Air gathering millions of viewers, and Finland was swimming in money thanks to Nokia selling phones like crazy. But I don't remember there being any talks about building a new circuit at the time. Helsinki was supposed host a street GP in 2002 but for unknown reason it never materialized. Again in 2015 there were talks about a street race, but to no avail. This was the proposed layout.

 

 

 

Is that the old Helsinki Thunder DTM track? I remember that race, sure F3000 supported them. 

[Vitesse2]

There was an Estonian GP for cars between 1934 and 1936, although it didn't attract the main teams - mostly privateers from Finland. Those with knowledge of Finnish racing in that era will recognise the names of Karl Ebb, who won in 1935, and Alexei Patama (1936).

 

Golden Era of course has the details of all three: http://www.goldenera.fi/t7.htm#PIRITA

 

Brasov in Romania was also a race venue, mainly for bikes, although there were some sports car races, usually dominated by visiting Germans and by Romania's finest driver of the era (all time?) Petre Cristea, who won the 1936 Monte Carlo Rally and was only denied another win in 1937 on a technicality. Of course the fact that this handed the win to a French crew was purely coincidental ...

[Vitesse2]

 

Yugoslavia held motorcycle Grands Prix at Opatija and Rijeka until its break-up.

 

There was a Grand Prix in Belgrade in 1939 which while not part of the European championship was important enough for Alfa, Auto Union and Mercedes to send teams. Perhaps most notable for being the last international motor race before the outbreak of war in Europe.

 

Golden Era has this magnificently understated concluding paragraph from Hans Etzrodt:

 

 

 

http://www.goldenera.fi/gp396.htm#25

 

Alfa Corse and Maserati entered, but neither arrived. Maserati for the very good reason that they'd sold the two 8CTFs to Écurie Schell, Alfa Corse apparently because they were fed up with getting beaten and announced at the end of August that - apart from two planned Brazilian races in October - they were withdrawing from racing for the rest of the year. They didn't go to Brazil either ...

 

There were pre-WW2 events at what became Preluk (Opatija), including a 1500cc race in 1939 - but at that time it was in Italy and called Abazzia!

 

https://www.racingci...uk-opatija.html

[flatlandsman]

There are other reasons, and those are that the vast majority of newer races are now only held in places that outbid other locations for them, rather sad, but that is just another reason not to watch!!

[ClubmanGT]

I really rated Brno, from the limited coverage I've seen of it, it gave strong Imola vibes. 

[noriaki]

Is that the old Helsinki Thunder DTM track? I remember that race, sure F3000 supported them. 

 

That seems to be a newer plan. The Helsinki Thunder track looks like this: 

 

Some say that Bernie had already an agreement to host a GP there in either 1998 or 1999, but his plans promptly changed after it was seen how F3000 fared there and how the track was obviously quite far from F1 standard... 

 

 

Montoya has even called it the worst track he ever raced on! 

 

In 2010, the track re-featured on the FOTA calendar for the fake breakaway series in 2010, but nothing obviously came to fruition.

 

There was an Estonian GP for cars between 1934 and 1936, although it didn't attract the main teams - mostly privateers from Finland. Those with knowledge of Finnish racing in that era will recognise the names of Karl Ebb, who won in 1935, and Alexei Patama (1936).

 

Golden Era of course has the details of all three: http://www.goldenera.fi/t7.htm#PIRITA

 

 

The Pirita circuit also stayed active long after the war - all the way until 2006!

There was a motorsport scene in the Soviet Union, and the Baltics were one of its strongest areas both in rallying (where they have strong local scenes even today) and circuit racing, including the Soviet "Formula 1", which was established in the early 1960's. Alongside the Bikirnieki circuit in Latvia, the Kaunas circuit in Lithuania, the Borovaya circuit in Belarus, the Chayka circuit in Ukraine, and the Neva Ring in Russia, it was one of the most active tracks to host this form of circuit racing -- with sometimes very large crowds to boot.

 

Topically, throughout the 1980s there were some more or less concrete plans to host a World Championship Soviet GP. The Pirita circuit was one of the suggested sites thrown about, and the local motoring authorities were definitely interested in making that happen - a FOCA representative even visited the venue to check it out. Although it was far from F1 standard even back then, apparently there were legitimate plans in motion to make enough modifications to bring the place up to Formula One standard and make it the venue for the official GP! However, Brezhnev's death in 1982 and subsequent personnel changes within the Soviet bureaucracy seemed to put these plans on hold permanently, as the focus of the Soviet motoring authorities shifted to supporting the Moscow proposal instead.

 

Unfortunately, Pirita was also the site of the famous TT rider Joey Dunlop's death in 2000. 

 

Here's an onboard from 2005: 

Edited by noriaki, 25 July 2023 - 19:25.

[IrvTheSwerve]

Great track is Brno, from memory. Always wanted to see F1 cars around there.

[Alan Lewis]

TNF thread on the Peace & Friendship Cup (Eastern bloc racing in the 60s)...

https://forums.autos...and-friendship/