London GP

[soccerman17]

Awesome scenery, god awful track. No high speed corners just a borefest of 90 degree corners and near 90 degree corners, plus about half the field being taken out by that arch. One mistake and your car is done for, you have a concussion, and you miss the next race. Surely wont pass safety regs.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Although I would love a GP in London I do feel that the looks very similar to Singapore () . I also think both Hamilton and Button were making a lot of some of the corners (I know they have to...). Although the track doesn't look great the scenary looks amazing, possibly on par with Monaco.

With regards to it being a diversion for Ecclestone I think that certainly is a possibility. However why have Santander made the video? A deal hasn't been struck yet so they are not yet the definite sponsor of the GP and they are not connected to Ecclestone in any way (that I am aware of) which puts doubts on whether it is a smokescreen for him. If you factor in the production time to make a video that looks this professional it must have been made a few weeks ago, if the idea was total BS then why has all this been put in place?

Although I would very much like to see this Grand Prix occur I highly doubt it will...

 

[Porceliamone]

Of course there's no other sport in the world that would cause a major shut down in London for a weekend right now and we've got no experience whatsoever of holding a massively complicated and crowded event. Oh hang on a mo', don't we have the most famous marathon in the world there every year? Oh yes, yes we do.

Never say never.

 

[gethinceri]

It is total BS, no-FIAt-please, and it has been created by Santander as an advertisement for their products. I am a cynic, sure, but this has nothing to do with there ever being a likelihood of a London GP taking place, creating the video has been done in the same way as Sky make their pre-show for each GP, all CGI with voiceovers full of generalisations which could have been chopped from their previous script and inserting the word London every now and again. So it won't have been expensive or particularly time consuming for them, but it might encourage people to buy a mortgage.

 

[Porceliamone]

gethinceri Ordinarily I'd totally agree with you but I find myself being slightly more optimistic about many things on a personal level these days. One can hope, I hope!

 

[f1fansp]

Just had a read of some of the realistic pieces on this, from Joe Saward, Andrew Benson.

I feel like a bit of a mug, like the guy who falls for the April's fool prank.

 

[Fenderman]

I wouldn't beat yourself up on this f1fansp, a London GP is by no means a new idea but, yes there seems to have been a lot more effort going into pushing the idea in recent months. As for the location of the track and the scenery, well we don't actually see much of Singapore at night, do we. Nice scenery is a fat lot of good if the track is pancake flat, lacking any kind of truly challenging or interesting corners and then there's the fencing, walls and barriers that make the whole thing look like one long tunnel.

Oh, and how come F1 is contemplating pumping ludicrous amoounts of money into a temporary track when not so long ago it was threatening Silverstone? Just think what a transformation would be possible with a fraction of the cash needed for this Loondon* project.

*The spoof-spell.iis ntentional

 

[Brogan]

Never going to happen.

Thank goodness.

 

[FB]

They said that about the Olympics Mr B

Anyone else think Bo Jo would be at the opening of an envelope if there was some publicity to be had?

 

[Brogan]

Well he is the Mayor of London...

 

[sobriety]

They should rebuild the old track at crystal palace

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Ok time for some what if reasoning.

If it is possible to host a track around old London Town then they would have to choose dates to co-incide with the closure of parliment.
The Queen would have to bugger off to Windsor or Sandringham otherwise the old Greek will complain about the racket and come out with his shotgun.
With Valencia and Barcelona sharing the Spanish GP rights London or Silverstone could become the European GP.
Security in that area is already one of the highest and they have experience with shutting it down for a long weekend as has been previously mentioned with the London Marathon.
One thing I've not noticed is space for fans. Valencia was very sparse for much of the lap and I could predict high demand for tickets. There needs to be capacity for at least 200,000 fans.

I know it will never happen but its nice to dream.

 

[sportsman]

Never going to happen.We are not talking about shutting it down for a long weekend.Eight days in total to build and dismantle the barriers, pits.
Nothing more than cynical bullshit.Or Santander advertising.
Autosport ran the same idea over thirty years ago as one of their April Fools day articles.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

Nice bit of promo to get F1 into the press ahead of Silverstone... even LH threw out some comments that are a nice distraction from the pallava of Valencia... circuit has echo's of Detroit with better scenery and some slightly longer straights...

In the last year or so we have had mutterings of GP's through the streets of London... Paris... Moscow (I think)... New Jersey...

Personally I think this has as much chance of gaining traction as the GP of Iran...

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Just been reading some of the comments on Bensons blog, one of them mentions the act of parliment that was required for Birmingham to stage the race. He goes on to mention that you can not be caught for speeding in certain areas because of it.

Is this total hogwash or can some on here confirm or deny it?

 

[FB]

I think it's illegal in the UK to close public roads for motor racing isn't it? Hence why Rally GB is all on special stages and the cars have to drive at the speed limits from stage to stage. I might be wrong...

 

[sportsman]

Remember this.Birmingham had a special act of Parliament for these races.
From Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_SuperprixThe Halfords Birmingham Superprix was a motor racing meeting held on a street circuit at the heart of Birmingham, England, from 1986 to 1990. Until 1990 the principal event was a round of the European Formula 3000 Championship, but support races included BTCC and Formula Ford 1600 rounds, as well as sports car racing.

 

[Galahad]

Apparently Westminster Council hadn't been consulted about it, if any more indication was needed of how seriously to take this story.

 

[jez101]

I think the layout looks just like Silverstone!

Unlikely, yes. Improbable, even. Impossible, probably, but no harm done - just like every other time the idea has come up. Nice visuals though

 

[sportsman]

F1Yorkshire.Hogwash from Benson.The speed deregulation only applied to the race competitors and official cars during the event itself.