Octagon

[lauz]

im not sure if this has been discussed before but anyway what is happening to ogtagon because ive heard that they are selling the tracks. if its true what will happen to the btcc?

[Paul Rayner]

I wouldn't worry. Chances are that anyone who buys a race circuit is going to want to hold races on it, especially the UK's biggest championship. There will probably also be contracts in place with the Octagon circuits that mean that any races already planned have to take place under new ownership.

This has happened before (When Octagon bought the Brands Hatch Leisure Group circuits), and there were no major problems then.

[lauz]

good i was getting worried about the touring cars

[Racefan_uk]

I would think the most important worry would be that Octagon has a share in BMP, which in turn controls and runs TOCA. So, when Octagon go and they are short of cash, how does that affect the BTCC?
:confused:

[Sim_Da_BTCC_Man]

Well this is something that has been expected for a while. Interpublic were loosing to much money in the Octagon venture. I think it will all be fine unless the dreaded housing developers come in, but what will happen to all of our Octagon season tickets?

The one thing I am worried about is BMP and TOCA. If I was rich i'd buy out Octagons stake in the companies ;). If something like this happened in the fricking curling the government would come in and help! They think cirling is a sport that deserves help but motorsport is not?

[Alan]

There is an interesting (but not necessarily helpful) article in Autosport this week.

The crux of this seems to be the cost of running the British GP. It sounds as if when Octagon bought BHL they paid over the odds.

The fate of the four circuits we are concerned about seems uncertain, but the implication is that in themselves they are a going concern. All have seen, or are seeing considerable investment recently, but would be best sold as a group it appears.

Re the GP and Silverstone, we must remember that Octagon only own the rights to run the GP there - the circuit is still owned by the BRDC.

Perhaps the ideal would be to sell the GP and circuits separately.

Anyone got some loose change?:)

[Amanda]

I vote we get together and buy Brands Hatch! Anyone interested in joining me???

[Racefan_uk]

If it meant that entry prices would come down, then yes! But I can't see anything changing dramatically.

They'll sell the circuits off seperatly if they have any sense, I wouldn't think there are that many people that can afford all four! (Plus Kart venues AND the GP lease!)

[The Stig]

How lucrative is circuit ownership ? Would an investment of this nature actually see a return, or would the promise of a high profile event (British F1 GP), increase the price to a potential investor without the guarantee of even a modest return. Money is still being spent at some of the UK's premier circuits seemingly, if the venture is high risk how do circuit owners finance the investment, or are they compelled to spend as part of existing contracts. Sorry for all the questions but this whole area seems a minefield.

[Kelvin]

Never mind just worrying about the BTCC, what about the rest of British Motorsport also!!!
From trackdays up, the whole scene is very important.
Most tracks should be operated in a sort of 'academy' structure, geting people on the track, this fires up so many to go further in Motorsport.

Kelvin

[Frank Rizzo]

Alan hit the nail on the head.

Bernie Ecclestone has even gone as far as to say that he never understood why Octagon committed to a 10 year contract with FOM (Formula One Management) instead of the customary 5 years. I personally think that the end result of all this will be the Octagon owned circuits in new hands, Silverstone still running as a national and international circuit, but the British GP being lost. The contract will not have it's terms changed, so if the costs of compliance with the F1 contract prevent a purchase being made because it's impossible to turn a profit, who would take that on?

Interpublic's problem is that they are stuck with honouring the contract for the foreseeable future. One hopes that out of spite or financial need, they don't sell their assets (and land) to the highest bidder (which would probably be a developer).

Let's hope that Bernie doesn't let that happen - he seems (as always) the only one capable of intervening and either making a purchase (which would cause a whole set of conflicts of interests) or adjusting the contract to attract a buyer for the whole lot that would have motorsport's interests, as well as profit, at heart.

[bramble]

There must be a decent profit in motorsport, otherwise why build Rockingham?

If the circuits are sold, I expect they won't be kept together, with the rise in property prices over the last few years and the current economic climet, I would be surprised to see anyone take all of them.

Who ever takes them over should think of doing a bit of marketing to raise the tracks profile, and increase spectators.

[touring fan]

There was a good article in Autosport last week about it which kinda suggests that octagon were on a hiding to nothing from the start and got a bad deal.

[Frank Rizzo]

Originally posted by touring fan
There was a good article in Autosport last week about it which kinda suggests that octagon were on a hiding to nothing from the start and got a bad deal.

I think that may have been where I read it. And I'm wrong in that it's a FIFTEEN year lease! Martin Brundle has voiced his concerns of the British GP being lost in Motorsport News this week, based on this subject.

The thing is, if Octagon got a bad deal, who's fault is that? Not FOM, because they are clearly looking to increase their own profit, not somebody else's!

Looks bad if you ask me.

[Reynard]

I think the problems started when Nicola Foulston was in charge of BHL. The bottom line was that she didn't think it was important to invest in the circuits - neither from the viewpoint of driver safety or from the issues of spectator comforts, shall we say.

Her reluctance to invest in the company caused a lot of problems, from preventable driver fatalities right through to disappearing toilets and ever more dodgy food. At one point, I believe BHL was making a substantial financial loss as a result of Foulston's mismanagement. It was a relief to see her go, though.

When Foulston sold off the concern to Octagon, I don't think that Octagon were aware of how much the goods they bought i.e. the circuits were in sore need of financial investment even to maintain them to current standards at the time and that's even before considering improvements. Whether that was intentional on the part of BHL, it is impossible to say, but if Octagon had realised that Nicola Foulston was effectively giving a false description of the goods on sale, I doubt they would have bought... It does cut both ways though.

I therefore think the reason that Octagon secured a long-term lease on Silverstone and the rights to host the GP was an effort to recoup some of the money needed to plough back into the other circuits as a result of the problems they inherited from BHL. On the surface, long-term investment in the F1 concern is a good idea as you are guaranteed returns from ticket sales, TV rights etc.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that as you still have to pay money to F1 in order to actually have the right to host the race. And with F1 being what it is, if Bernie thinks that the stripes painted on the road are the wrong colour, he's got the right to pull the plug on the whole GP. F1, as prestigious as it is, is both a financial and political minefield...

But with F1 being the pinnacle of the sport, some companies are gullible enough to pay over the odds without looking at the small print. Either way, someone is going to have to fall on his sword over the whole sorry mess.

With everything being so interconnected i.e. Octagon, BMP etc I just hope it doesn't have an effect on either the BTCC or other national and club racing. While people worry and whine about F1, the first ones to suffer are the people competing at the grassroots level.

[Frank Rizzo]

Agree entirely Reynard, but if we lose the F1 GP in the UK, it would be disastrous for the entire motosport scene in GB, from club racing to BTCC.

Clearly, the large proportion of F1 teams based around Northamptonshire would diminish with nothing to tie them to it, especially as other governments would undoubtedly throw in a few sweeteners to encourage them to relocate. The subsequent lack of investment would be catastrophic for British motorsport, which is why F1 is so important to us, even if you are not a supporter.

[The Stig]

Not sure I agree with you Frank Rizzo. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport, but it is also populated by massive and selfish egos with self interest the only priority. It is too big, too greedy and too spectactor unfriendly. Without a British GP at Silverstone or anywhere, BTCC rounds would still fill the UK circuits and British motorsport would continue to thrive. The priority, as Reynard points out at the very end of that contribution is the opposite end of the spectrum where many many peoples interest in British motorsport starts, either spectating or competing. Get that right and invest there first. Don't be suckered into making the British F1 GP the imperative.

[Les]

have to disagree a bit there.
If we were to lose the GP then it would affect all levels of motorsport in this country. OK the touring cars would continue as would the little circuits but I could see Silverstone going bust pretty quickly. They must get most of their revenue from the GP and also staff themselves/Octagon because of the GP (ticket sales staff etc).
It might not affect the racing but you might find it affecting the backroom stuff.

[Paul Rayner]

The British grand prix is a vital event for motorsports revenue in the UK. Silverstone take so much money from that event, it dwarfs anything Touring Cars gets, and ticket sales figures in the UK took a massive blow in 2000 when they had to give so many refunds to people.

As for saying that most people's interest in motorsport starts with things like the BTCC, I totally disagree. Formula One is massive, and that's where most people start. If they like watching that they they're sometimes willing to check out things like the BTCC. F1 gets the most attention, the most media coverage and, without the British grand prix, there wouldn't be one single "special" event in the year that the press could hype up as "the event of the motorsports year". That hype means something to the sport.

I agree that the F1 GP shouldn't be kept AT ALL COSTS, but it is important to motorsport in this country, it is worth a lot.

[Racefan_uk]

If the GP doesn't happen in the UK then racing will carry on, jst that Silverstone would become a bit overwhelming for club and national racing, but it will be nice to be able to use such great facilities!

The F1 teams will carry on, regardless of a race in the UK or not. They are in it to make money at the end of the day. I'm sure there isn't one team manager that would stand up and remove his cars from the grid if the British GP was removed, they couldn't afford to!

The smaller circuits in the UK will probably be better off under individual control anyway. Castle Combe is a brilliant venue, which actually PROMOTES its race days and gets HUGE crowds, without a F1 race, OR a BTCC race...

Silverstone is undergoing a huge redevelopment at the moment and it is only for the GP, but it will benefit other racing too.

As for a 'motorsport event of the year', well, we'd still have the Bike GP and Superbikes, plus 10 rounds of the BTCC, 12 rounds of the F3 AND GT's. If people are fans of motorsport, they'll go and watch something other than F1, which would be better for UK motorsport as a whole than ploughing all that money into one event.

Besides, it's cheaper to get a coach trip to Le Mans or another European GP than it is to buy a three day pass to Silverstone for the GP. Octagon wanted to get the money back as quickly as possible and saw the people through the gate number drop like a brick!

[The Stig]

Those are the sort of comments I should have said myself Racefan_uk. F1 wherever, seems so spectactor unfriendly. There are a multitude of options for UK motorsport fans, many of which allow spectators, (for that also read customers), much closer access. F1 is a better TV spectacle, whereas BTCC for example, is more of a "contact" event, without the arrogance of F1

[Frank Rizzo]

Sorry guys, but you are wrong. Paul Rayner has got it completely right, and you are letting your dislike of F1 cloud the issue.

Additionally, Racefan_UK, you mis-interpreted my comments regarding the F1 teams. I did not suggest they would boycott F1 if there was no British GP (do I sound that stupid?). What I said was that they would base their operations elsewhere if there was no British GP. These teams all run substantial youth programmes to encourage young people to get invlolved in motorsport at all levels. How good for British Motorsport in it's entirety do you think it would be if they all up and left the country. By your own admission, these are self serving corporations that exist to make money. Well don't think for a moment then, that they would not be enticed by a tax break by moving to, say, France, if there was no British GP to keep them here.

You ignored Paul Rayner's comments, which were correct, that F1 get's people into motorsport. You cannot say that if we lose the GP, then it's ok because we still have the Bike GP or BTCC, because look at the audience figures, for chrissakes!!! Whether you like F1 is irrelevant - the loss of a British date on the F1 calender would be disastrous for motorsport in this country.

Or perhaps the entire editorial staff of Autosport and MSN, Martin Brundle, Tony Jardine, Murray Walker, Max Mosley, most of the posters on this site (shall I go on?) are all mistaken.

[Reynard]

Before you guys start tearing out each others' throats over this, let me just say that you are all right - within certain limitations.

F1 is the starting point for most people's interest in motorsports - well, it certainly was mine. Unless you are lucky enough to live a stone's throw away from a circuit, the TV is probably the medium people most use to follow the sport. And therefore you watch what is on TV i.e. predominantly F1. Once I'd got the racing bug, I began to explore other types of racing; first BTCC, then F3 and Group C endurance racing. Now, some 15 years or so down the line, while I am still interested in F1 from a technology point of view (in part down to what I actually do), I personally much prefer watching national and club level racing i.e. BTCC, British GT, ASCAR etc.

Since I first for interested in motor racing, F1 has become more and more removed from fans, turned into a serious hard-nosed business and politics circle where the actual racing seems to take place as an afterthought.

The trouble with Octagon is the fact that they've hyper-inflated the gate prices for F1 - apart from I think Japan, tickets for the British GP are the most expensive. They were always pricey enough, but with limitations placed on Silverstone crowd sizes following Mansellmania-fuelled track invasions and then the problems they had in 2000, the maximum capacity for a GP at Silverstone is now about 60,000. It used to be 120,000 plus... And yet they're still getting in real terms, the same gate revenue.

Octagon are trying to make up a massive shortfall in money, in terms of the British GP, they're pricing out the very people who actually want to go. And to be honest, when you go to a GP, you don't get very much for your money - for the price of a standard gate ticket, I can get a season pass to Rockingham, plus do a whole batch of other meetings at Snetterton and Donington and still have some change left over. The Stig is right in saying that F1 is best left to a TV audience (why pay through the nose for being bored out of your skull?) whereas series like the BTCC are better seen trackside, where you CAN walk in the paddock, meet the drivers, eyeball the cars, pick up freebies and enjoy a good support card.

The problem with the GP is that it is just a single event. When it is over, that is it for another year. Something like the BTCC for instance, while it may not generate the same level of revenue per meeting, it is spread across ten meetings all over the country, some at Octagon circuits, some not. In global terms, it probably generates just as much money for British motorsport throughout the year than the GP does on one weekend - and what's more, the money gets put back where it matters.

Outside the GP, Silverstone is a white elephant. Go to a meeting there during the rest of the year and it feels empty - hell, it IS empty. There's no atmosphere, nothing. And with the new restrictions on F1 testing, Silverstone sees even less use - take the example of Jordan. They're based just outside the circuit gates but have elected to use Friday testing at GP meets.

Not only that (here's an answer for Les) virtually all of the Octagon staff are actually based at Brands Hatch...

Hosting the GP isn't the be all and end all. We may end up losing it anyway through the ban on tobacco sponsorship.

The real power in British motorsport is the infastructure that we have in the UK; championships, teams, circuits, drivers, technology, knowledge - why do you think so many drivers come from overseas to compete here? The GP is just a single event, the rest of all this is a way of life.

[Frank Rizzo]

I've just folded my 'ACME Throat Tearer Outer' machine up neatly and put it safely away in a drawer.

Good post Reynard. I've never been in disagreement with the poor value argument re F1 - going to the British GP represents extremely poor value (although I found the Sky interactive charge of £12.00 fairly reasonable last year!). I merely think Stig and Racefan were underestimating the relevance of the British GP to all other levels of motorsport in this country.

[Kelvin]

The real power in British motorsport is the infastructure that we have in the UK; championships, teams, circuits, drivers, technology, knowledge - why do you think so many drivers come from overseas to compete here? The GP is just a single event, the rest of all this is a way of life.


Spot on comment Reynard!

[Racefan_uk]

Firstly, Frank, I didn't aim my comments as a throw back at you, they were my own opinions, I wasn't having a go!

I know that some of the F1 teams run youth policies across the UK in lower formula. However, have you asked the question why they do that? Because the UK has the best national motorsport scene of anywhere in the world, it is seen as the most competitive. I don't think there would be that much change if the GP was lost. You other main point was that the teams would relocate if the GP was axed from the UK. Maybe, maybe not. It has been said that the reason the majority of F1 teams are based here is because UK enigineering talent is the best in the world. If they all relocated elsewhere they would lose a large chunk of that talent and if the sport is going to continue to be the best engineering spectacle then they will need those people. But yes, you are right, they maybe would move, but could you see Ron Dennis spending the millions he has on the new Paragon complex and the WIlliams, Bennetton & Jaguar teams deconstructing their nice new windtunnels and taking them across the channel? No, me neither!

You said that I ignored Paul's comment about F1 being the main reason that people get into motorsport in this country. I didn't ignore it, I just didn't write a reply to it! I agree, to many people, F1 is the first glimpse they get of motorsport. But it is usually on TV, isn't it? Would it matter if it was the British or the Australian? (First GP I watched was Monaco, on TV...)

Reynard nailed it when she mentioned the pricing of the GP and Octagon's attitude to the fans. The price of going to see the British GP for just two, maybe three, days a year is just too much. For the price it cost for a three day pass and a grandstand seat last year I could have taken a family of four on a weeks holiday! (Somewhere warm and dry too!)
:p

That point we both agree on, in fact we are both right, but coming from different angles. The problem is that the UK motorsport fraternity doesn't revolve around F1. Ok, the F3 and single seater drivers are all itching to get into a Formula 1 car, but the BTCC drivers aren't, neither are the GT drivers or the racers in the lower and club formula. Different drivers have different agendas, whether they are racing for a career or whether they are doig it for fun. All of the club racing in the UK would not be affected one bit if the GP didn't happen. It might be slightly different for something like F3, as it has slightly stronger ties to GP racing, but all the young drivers wanting to get into F1 come to the British F3 Championship, because it has the highest profile and the most coverage.

As for the people at Autosport, MN, Jardine and Murray Walker et al, well, maybe they are right. But they all have a vested interest in F1, don't they? I wasn't knocking what you were saying Frank, just offering my differing opinon!

[Reynard]

Originally posted by Racefan_uk
The problem is that the UK motorsport fraternity doesn't revolve around F1.

Depends how you put it really as there's many sides to a statement like that....

In terms of the actual racing, then no it doesn't. A majority of racing drivers in the UK are not involved in single seaters - most compete in saloons and sportscar series of all sorts from 750MC events right up to BTCC and have no intention of reaching F1. Although top-class single seater racing is geared to take talented drivers all the way to F1, a large number of drivers are just happy to be competing at that particular level before taking a sideways step into saloons or sportscars. We've seen that often enough.

Of course, we see drivers who although they are more than talented to be successful in Grand Prix racing, have ended up doing other things in the UK when things haven't quite worked out, because the level and quality of racing in this country is sufficiently competitive to tax their abilities.

However, when you look at the influence of F1 from the point of view of technology, then yes, that aspect of UK motorsport does in part revolve around F1 - not all of it, but certainly a predominant section. It is not just the teams themselves, but also companies and institutions that deal with the teams eg composites and component manufacturers, universities, external testing facilities (for crash testing) etc. And then there's also the companies who manufacture chassis for other forms of racing (single seaters, saloons etc) - you'd be surprised to know just how many of the engineers, technicians and mechanics working there have been involved in F1 at some time or other, gaining their expertise from working with the best.

However, F1 technology and methods does filter down through the sport for general racing use and hence on to road cars - in no way is F1 a closed environment as far as engineering practice and development is concerned. Technology transfer, as it is known in the trade, is an important aspect of F1 as today's development work is tomorrow's road car and this is something that should never be ignored.

Because everything at that level is so integrated, if F1 was to completely divorce itself from UK industry, the consequences would be disastrous, not just in the automotive sector but also in aerospace, electronics and composites as well. This is because many of the F1 teams have so-called "Technical Partners" who are involved in a large proportion of the cutting edge development work, forming a two-way process between F1 and the general engineering industry.

Upping sticks and moving out of the UK therefore just isn't an option for teams such as Williams and Mclaren as they'd be leaving behind a large amount of technical expertise that just isn't available anywhere else. And as racefan_uk points out, they'd also be wasting facilities that they've put a considerable investment into....

It doesn't matter whether we have a GP here or not, but if we lost it, it would be a break in a tradition that goes back more than half a century... But tell me this, what is more important? Losing just what is effectively just a single once-yearly event or losing pretty well much an entire industry comprising of some of the best technical minds in the world?

A point in fact is that all of the best technological developments in F1 to date have come from people like Colin Chapman, Len Terry, Harvey Postlethwaite, John Barnard, Gordon Murray, Frank Dernie, Frank Costin, Reg Duckworth, Patrick Head, Adrian Newey, Ross Brawn...

Can we risk turning our backs on that sort of heritage?

Need I say more?

[Frank Rizzo]

Errrm.

I'll get me coat.