Formula 1 freight in transit
Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hit back at Eddie Gossage, the president of Texas Motor Speedway, after the latter made disparaging remarks regarding the clash of dates between the grand prix in Austin and a NASCAR race at TMS.
Ecclestone told PA Sport, “We’ve a small problem that [NASCAR] don’t have – we have six jumbo jets to move around all our equipment, and we have to find the most sensible way to use them to do that.”
Earlier this week Gossage attacked Ecclestone with regards to the clashing dates in Texas, “I absolutely think it’s foolish. Nobody wins. It’s a shot fired by Formula 1 at NASCAR. I can’t say that I was surprised because Bernie Ecclestone does a lot of foolish things.”
“It’s just not smart. There are 52 weeks in the year. But that was the only weekend that F1 could make it work in Austin, Texas? Give me a break. It wouldn’t have happened if [the US GP organisers] had the strength and the fortitude to stand up and say no,” added Gossage.
Ecclestone explained the situation from an F1 perspectve, “The race prior to the one in the US is in Russia, in Sochi. We’ve never been before, and we have to get out of there and into Austin. That is probably a lot easier than trying to get into Brazil, and then we have to get out of there [Sao Paulo] to go to Abu Dhabi.”
“So he [Gossage] is extremely lucky he doesn’t have to do what we have to do. I’ve also spoken to the people that run the race at COTA {Circuit of the Americas} and their position is that they believe the NASCAR crowd is a different crowd to F1, different people, different customers.”
“At the end of the day they run a domestic series in America – we run a World Championship,” concluded Ecclestone.
The United States Grand Prix weekend takes place at Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, from 31 October to 2 November. On the same weekend the AAA Texas 500, the eighth race in the Chase for the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup, takes place at Texas Motor Speedway.
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