Formula 1 is contracted to remain in Melbourne for another 14 years, extending to four decades this city’s love-hate relationship with its rumbling, high-octane race weekend.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.In a sport where few things are certain beyond the next fast approaching corner, Australian Grand Prix chief Travis Auld has a rare opportunity to look past Sunday’s race towards a distant horizon.
“Coming out of COVID, like every other sporting entertainment organisation has experienced, like every construction business has experienced, the cost of doing business has increased. There has been a step change in the cost of doing business. The task for us now is to level out.”That levelling out, as the former AFL executive gently puts it, will require more than a tap on the brakes.
Peter Goad, the long-serving president of the Save Albert Park, which has protested the location of the race since Michael Schumacher completed his first hot lap here in 1996, is 99 years old. He turns 100 in October and, despite his remarkable longevity, is resigned to never witnessing the day when the GP leaves town for good.
According to EY’s formula, $128 million of direct investment generated by last year’s race can be traced to the spending habits of 81,000 international and interstate visitors who attended the event. This weekend, an estimated nine out of 10 hotel rooms in Melbourne are occupied and the only thing more difficult than overtaking on the tight Albert Park circuit is finding a table at one of the city’s leading restaurants.
The sting for Auld is that, in reaching new terms with Domenicali, a former Ferrari team principal intimately familiar with the inner workings of an idiosyncratic global sport, Andrews and Pakula ceded to F1’s demand to pocket all revenue from the Paddock Club, the $6000-a-head corporate hospitality suites overlooking pit lane where celebrities and media and business execs will mingle over the next two days with F1 drivers and team bosses.
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