Another money-losing F1 race in jeopardy

The popular Belgian Grand Prix may only take place once every other year in the future, alternating with the Nurburgring in Germany, that is the proposal being considered by Etienne Davignon, the president of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

“We have already been congratulated by F1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone. The facilities we have here are perfect. I have said in previous years though we will look at the figures and examine them year-on-year," Davignon told hln.be.

“We have certain overall targets in terms of income and expenditure. I don’t want to give exact figures now, although ticket sales on Tuesday and Wednesday [before the race] were generally on course.

“However, what will happen in the future we don’t know. We are playing with the idea of alternating with a circuit nearby [the Nurburgring]. That is the current state of play. However we are not at that stage yet."

Meanwhile, in a separate report, Davignon confirmed to Reuters that the race will probably make a loss of around 3 million Euros this year.

"The discussion with Ecclestone [about the future] is based on the fact that we believe we are running too high a deficit and that we have to try to accommodate that," he continued. "We can't say that it is because of the [economic] crisis and so on.

"We know that with what we can attract at the prices we have to take because of what the race costs we cannot reach the figures that we require.

"[As such] there are two elements of reality: 2012 is under contract and 2011 is on the schedule. What we do in relation to how we organize after 2012, or not, is part of the whole discussion. Presently though there are a number of uncertainties…" he summed-up.