Liberty Media Corp., proprietor of the System 1 racing enterprise, is searching for extra funds from the principality of Monaco as a part of superior talks for a brand new contract to increase the historic automobile race past 2025.
Monaco pays about $20 million a yr to host the occasion, the bottom complete on the 24-race calendar, and representatives of Liberty Media are searching for a rise, in response to folks accustomed to the discussions. The events agreed to the present three-year deal in September 2022. This yr, the motion begins on Could 24.
Like all main vacationer points of interest, the Monaco Grand Prix delivers an enormous financial enhance to the area, filling resort rooms with spenders large and small. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, two different race hosts, fork over greater than $50 million a yr, in response to some estimates. The charges present System 1 with funds it makes use of to pay out prize cash on the finish of every season.
A spokesperson for System 1 declined to touch upon the present talks, however stated the corporate isn’t contemplating pulling out of Monaco. The Vehicle Membership de Monaco, which organizes the race, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Beneath Chief Govt Officer Greg Maffei, Liberty Media has grown annual System 1 income by greater than 50% since 2019 to $3.22 billion final yr. The corporate has been centered on increasing System 1 to international locations past Europe, the place the game originated. The US now hosts three races — in Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas — and there have been persistent rumors of a race coming to a different US metropolis.
In 2022, New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams provided Randall’s Island as a possible venue, however System 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali disagreed concerning the viability of that location, a small island of ballfields that will be troublesome to entry for the 300,000-plus followers anticipated at such an occasion.
The Prime Minister of Thailand lately met with F1 officers to debate a race in Bangkok.
The glamorous Monaco Grand Prix, held within the sunshine-drenched streets of Monte Carlo, is taken into account a bucket-list occasion in motorsports. Monaco organizers have been unwilling to vary their enterprise mannequin all that a lot as a result of they’re assured that the historical past and status of their almost 100-year-old circuit trumps monetary concerns, one individual stated. Lots of the drivers reside in Monaco.
However System 1 followers and distinguished racers together with Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have criticized the two-mile monitor as oppressively uninteresting, because the dimension of the trendy race vehicles prohibits them from the daring passes and three-abreast racing that extra trendy circuits enable.
“Thank God that’s over, that was probably the most boring race I’ve ever participated in,” seven-time world champion Hamilton stated after he completed third there in 2022.
The principality has been pressured to vary previously. Two years in the past, it gave up the precise to supply its personal tv protection of the race in alternate for a brand new contract.
“Monaco epitomizes what F1 is,” stated Vincenzo Landino, an F1 analyst and advisor who publishes the Qualifier, a publication concerning the sport. “You eliminate that, now you’ve gotten a model disaster, in my view.”
