The Canada question was brought up in the press conference for Japan. The team bosses don´t seem too happy about it.
Mario Theissen: Obviously we are not happy about not being in North America. The US is the most important and biggest car market for BMW and I think for the industry as a whole. It has always been difficult to set foot into the US but Canada has always been a very strong Formula One supporter and the race in Montreal. I have seen the race in Montreal as an operational base to get a second race up and running in the US, and so we would, rather than drop the Canada race, use it or expand the operations in North America to have a Canadian plus at least one US race.
John Howett: We are sad because it’s a great race, we like to go there. I think one of the targets of FOTA is to actually ask the commercial rights holder to really establish a strong foothold in North America, particularly the US, with a race which showcases Formula One well, and is, if you like, economically beneficial to Formula One as a whole. So I think this is one of the core discussions FOTA wishes to have because it is a very important market for our sponsors and for Formula One and hopefully in the next one to two years we can establish a proper race in the United States which is good for all of us.
Nick Fry: We are hugely disappointed – it’s difficult to emphasise by how much. Honda is very successful in Canada, we make cars there, the local company there is hugely enthusiastic about Formula One. We have large numbers of guests from America and from Canada. We sponsor the event, we would like to see it back on the calendar as soon as possible and I support John’s comments that I think it will be a major topic of conversation among the teams at the next meeting of the teams. I think we need to look at North America on a more strategic basis. As soon as we were down to one race on the continent, things inevitably were going to get difficult because the costs of transportation and appearing just once across the other side of the Atlantic were huge and I think really we need to look at how we’re not just going to get back Canada but how we get back to America, potentially more than once, as it is such an important market.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2008 07:50PM by airefresco.