Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed that the US GP is on the verge of disappearing from the calendar – and that nobody holds a contract to run the race.
In essence the final deadline for any kind of resolution is the FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in India on December 7.
Speaking to Ian Parkes of the UK’s Press Association, Ecclestone admitted that the race would be dropped if there was no solution: “Yes, it will be, for sure, 100%.”
Ecclestone also confirmed that Tavo Hellmund’s Full Throttle Productions no longer holds a contract to run the race, because it has been cancelled. COTA’s Bobby Epstein has thus been in negotiation over a totally new contract, rather than an acquisition of the one held by Hellmund.
“We had an agreement with Full Throttle Productions,” Ecclestone told Parkes. “Everything was signed and sealed, but we kept putting things off like the dates, various letters of credit and things that should have been sent, but nothing ever happened.
“Then these other people [Epstein and COTA] came on the scene, saying that they wanted to do things, but that they had problems with Tavo.
“They said they had the circuit, and that they wanted an agreement with me. I told them they had to sort out the contract with Tavo, which they said they would. But that has gone away now because we’ve cancelled Tavo’s contract as he was in breach.
“We’ve waited six months for him to remedy the breach. He knows full well why we’ve cancelled. He’s happy. But these other people haven’t got a contract. All we’ve asked them to do is get us a letter of credit.
“We are looking for security for money they are going to have to pay us. That is via a letter of credit, normally from a bank. If people don’t have the money they find it difficult to get the letter of credit, and so we don’t issue a contract.”
The big problem is that the race no longer has any guarantee of receiving $25m from the Texas Major Events Trust Fund, which was to have funded the sanctioning fee due to Bernie and the Formula One organisation.
Adam Cooper F1 
Maybe they can use it for motocross, because it sure looks like Formula 1 won’t ever be there.
The question is: If Bernie did such a sweetheart with Tavo, will he do the same for someone else? I doubt it.
Probably.
NJ is on the calendar now to give F1 a presence in the US, but they need a race somewhere on the continent to pair with Canada.
Bernie needs the race, theres a circuit partially built and a government willing to pay – surely they can work it out somehow.
Everybodu down here in Austin is shell-shocked now dealing with Bernie. Nothing is going to happen now. WE lost a chance to have a wondeful track with many races and now nothing.
Once Bernie is gone and other people can make money from F1 maybe things will be different. He has to leave, he is ruining the sport.
Thing is, Canada doesn’t necessarily need a partner. From 2000-2003, Canada and Indy were not paired on the calendar together, and it didn’t really harm either race.
In this case, I’m not sure I’d put the blame at Bernie’s door. Not entirely, at least. It seems the people who said they would pay up… didn’t. And if you don’t come through on your financial commitments as early as now, what’s to say you actually will come through later?
I don’t think you can blame Bernie for all of this. For sure I think that now that he has what he really wanted, which was a venue in or near NYC that he can take or leave Austin, but regardless of how much FOM charges CoTA needs to show that they have the means to pay it. Further, his contract was with Tavo, and Bernie’s not obligated to deal with CoTA.