COTA put out a short statement tonight indicating that it is amenable to postponing the first US GP in Austin until 2013.
The statement was in response to recent comments in the media from Bernie Ecclestone to the effect that a new contract could run from the later date, given that the original one with Tavo Hellmund has been cancelled.
However, the statement failed to address the bigger picture painted by Ecclestone – ie the apparent lack of funding.
COTA boss Steve Sexton said: “We have been excited for and working towards a 2012 USGP race and now understand that Mr. Ecclestone is interested in moving the Austin race to 2013. We know the U.S. market is important to the teams and their sponsors and 2013 certainly allows time for the Circuit of The Americas to be ready.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Is it possible that the same issue will arise in 2013, which is the pre-payment of the 25 million dollar fee?
Anyone going to place a bet on 2013 happening? What a joke. Thanks to Adam for being the best source on this story.
I blame myspef for falling into the trap that this race would happen. I should have known that spending 200 million on a facility for a sport that (relatively) no one in America cares about was a massive long shot. Add to it that they were trying to use public money to fund it in this political climate and in a massive GOP state and the writing was on the wall.
I won’t believe NJ is going to happen until the cars are on the grid.
I’m not happy to wait.
In the old days, when I was a bit younger, you had a race track, and then you held a race. Now it seems that you get the race before you build a track. I don’t think these folks really care about motor racing.
Welcome to Formula One. It really is mostly about the money. The racing is just an avenue to make the money.
Race tracks are expensive to build nowadays, especially if it needs to comply with F1-level standards. No one’s going to spend that kind of money building an F1 track until they can get a deal saying that they can host an F1 race on that track.
And so they really should put up the addition fee as per the FIA requirements, shouldn’t they?
Indeed they should. A lot of people said they would pay up, but no one seems to be paying up.
Gee looks like were aren’t going to have a race in Amerika as everyone fights over greed. It’s like building an F-1 team and having no money, WTF.
Yep, Jumpy Bob
Is anyone is really that surprised at the situation? I really like the big press conference earlier this year. They should hold those once they have a signed contract with Bernie. Hope NJ has their stuff together. And tell me again why 200k people at Indy was a failure?
The fools who make up the CoTA group have no idea who they’re dealing with. Bernie walked away from IMS, he turned his back on Silverstone and then Donnigton he’d walk away from Monaco if he could or needed to and he’s always working on new venues. CoTA needs Bernie, he does not need them. With all the new venues that Ecclstone is working on such as Mumbai, as well as many other venues that are vying to get back on or remain the schedule, Austin could find itself in SOL in 2013. That is, if they can manage to get the track built in two years.
Shame. Looked like an interesting track. If a miracle occurs, maybe we’ll see the IndyCars or ALMS on it…
If it’s built at all. A shame indeed.