from wiki, the seating capacity of sonoma is 102,000

They host IRL with no problem, and the garages work wonderfully for them. I was at the IRL race a couple years back with garage passes and watched qualifying, everything went without a hitch. F1 at sonoma would be a dream come true. I have grown up at sonoma...whether it be drag racing with my dad, karting up on the hill...or going to watch some road racing, Sears Point has been a home away from home.

I'll try to talk to the woman who runs all the drag races there and is highly influential. She is basically my second mom...so we can see what happens. Now would be the time to ask because it doesn't seem like they have any plans to come back atm...

The sad thing for American F1 fans, and the thing that Bernie just can't comprehend is that there are few if any track owners in the US who would want to spend gazillions of dollars to bring their tracks up to F1 standards.

Sears Point and Watkins Glen make tons of money off their present schedules of NASCAR, Indycar and sports car racing. And all of the other road courses do well enough with regional club racing and minor league stuff. They would lose money on an F1 race just as Indianapolis Motor Speedway lost money on all but the first few USGP's.

The FIA and Bernie have priced F1 clear out of the American market, a market that is already well satisfied with its national racing series.

Quote from Fischfix :

laguna seca or WATKINS GLEN

lool Nascar tracks

Quote from 11SuLLy11 :

lool Nascar tracks

laguna Seca isn't a nascar track :P

Dont forget the American Le Mans series and the Grand-Am series. They get a good amount of followers.

However, INDY isn't doing too good. Fans are diminishing.

Quote from tristancliffe :

'Obvious Safety Issues"!!!! What are we watching? The worlds best drivers in the worlds best cars, or a fecking window cleaning competition? They should accept the risk, or stay in FFord!

In my opinion of course!

Some tracks aren't made for todays F1 cars, like Bathurst for example. Would be a booring race with almost no overtakings. Just like Monaco, which in my opinion is the most booring track in F1 these days, right before Indianapolis.


I want a race in NY or LA like they have suggested (me finks)

As I see it, next year will be no USgp? Because they've replaced Magny Cours and Indy with Valencia and Singapore, so as i see it 2008 will see another dropping of a classic F1 track (fingers crossed) as they have added Abu Dhabi for 2009.

Quote from RacingSimFan :

The FIA and Bernie have priced F1 clear out of the American market, a market that is already well satisfied with its national racing series.

It's much the same for Europe, Silverstone cannot afford to run the British GP mainly because Bernie is hell bent against the BRDC, hence the crackpot London GP nonsense. As for Spa I seem to remember one year the explanation for dropping it in favour of a venue Bernie liked was that the paddock wasn't flat and he wanted the Belgians to spend millions flattening it

Quote from MyBoss :

Some tracks aren't made for todays F1 cars, like Bathurst for example. Would be a booring race with almost no overtakings. Just like Monaco, which in my opinion is the most booring track in F1 these days, right before Indianapolis.


I want a race in NY or LA like they have suggested (me finks)

That makes absolutely no sense. You say Monaco is second to worst, yet you want a NY or LA parking lot/street course?

NY (Downtown NY City) could never host a street race.

Quote from srdsprinter :

That makes absolutely no sense. You say Monaco is second to worst, yet you want a NY or LA parking lot/street course?

The streets round Monaco are pretty narrow compared to some newer cities

Quote from duke_toaster :

It's because the cars aren't built for them. Bear in mind that the cars are lighter than CCWS and IRL cars, and at 600kg are a hell of a lot heavier than the more than one and a half tonne stock cars.

It may shock you to discover that a Champ Car is a carbon fibre tub with four wheels attached to it and a stressed engine mounted behind the fuel tank which is mounted behind the driver who twiddles a steering wheel, who flaps his fingers to operate the seven speed gearbox.

Apart from being slightly heavier what is the enormous difference which means an F1 car can't drive on an oval, the Champ Cars are fundamentally the same whether they're setup on an oval or a road course, granted they make some chassis changes, but F1 could do this if they really wanted to, it's not even a one make series (although sometimes you'd of thought it is) and shockingly it supposedly has the worlds best engineers behind it (who obviously couldn't possibly solve this conundrum).

Quote from RacingSimFan :

Sears Point and Watkins Glen make tons of money off their present schedules of NASCAR, Indycar and sports car racing. And all of the other road courses do well enough with regional club racing and minor league stuff. They would lose money on an F1 race just as Indianapolis Motor Speedway lost money on all but the first few USGP's.

SP would get the advantages of a new pit lane and so-on for NASCAR, didn't they have to use some second pit lane or something?

A good venue would be a new road course at Pocono but that would a hell freezing over issue ... well, they could build a new one for ALMS and CCWS.

Quote from ajp71 :

Apart from being slightly heavier what is the enormous difference which means an F1 car can't drive on an oval, the Champ Cars are fundamentally the same whether they're setup on an oval or a road course, granted they make some chassis changes, but F1 could do this if they really wanted to, it's not even a one make series (although sometimes you'd of thought it is) and shockingly it supposedly has the worlds best engineers behind it (who obviously couldn't possibly solve this conundrum).

Forgive me if my info is outdated (5-8 years) but to be honest, champ car hasn't changed dramatically in that time:
The physical Body of the F1 car (appendages not included) is so highly developed to create downforce, even without the wings the F1 car produces a lot more drag than the Champ Car. That is why Honda (right?) had such a tough time trying to get a maximum V on the salt flats a few years ago.
Champ cars are much slicker through the air and don't have the downforce.
Also (this Was about 7 years ago before the multiple race weekend engine rule), I remeber it being said that if you went 100% throttle for more than 18 seconds in a F1 car, the engine would explode.
Pocono is in the middle of nowhere, so F1 would be good for them, as their NASCAR race is usually abismal... It is in the middle of the wilderness, an they have a helluva time trying to keep deer and wildlife off the track, as even the 8ft fences at Road America couldn't do. Fortunatly Da Matta is doing better after that incident.
Indy is currently the best/only viable option. The reason the stands may look very empty on tv is because at Maximum capacity for the heyday of the Indy 500 they were approaching half a million spectators. The poor racing has more to do with the discrepencies between the teams.

they go full throttle at indy for some 23 seconds or something like that, i didnt see many engines exploding.

Champ cars utilize ground effect, so yeah they dont have any of the aerodynamic components of an F1 car. If you stripped the F1 car of all the shit sticky outy bits and made it ground effect, anybody not in the know wouldnt know the difference between it and CCWS.

Indy may be the best potentially, but it really is an incredibly boring and basically shit layout.

Quote from 11SuLLy11 :

lool Nascar tracks

as mentioned above. laguna isn't nascar. but Champcar as far as i know. correct me if i am wrong...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Most tracks are better than the infield at Indy! I've always like Road America, but it's probably too 'out of date' for F1 these days.

Oh nooooooooo....
Someboddy just called the brickyard 'out-dated'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no he didn't.

Btw, what are the latest news from that Singapore night race?

Quote :

Daytona would be great and could easily be brought up to spec, but the banking is of course the issue.

Please correct me if I am wrong. I dont know much about Daytona but if I understand the layout of the infield track the banking is taken at quite low speed out of a 2/3rd gear or so corner, so I dont think it would be an issue. It seems to be a more interesting track than indi on the infield, and the whole place has a bit more atmosphere to it. Of course it suffers the same problems as every track in the US with the exception of indi, the facilities will not be up to par, which of course means that any decision on where to race is based on money, and not the most suiteable venue - so the whole discussion is moot

Ah, the Garage facilities at Daytona are pretty top notch, with enough room for 20+ Daytona Prototypes, 30+ Grand Am cars and 50+ Koeini Challenge cars, during the Daytona 24hr race. Its pretty remarkable amount of garage space.

Anywho the media spaces would need some upgrades.

The infield is relatively devoid of banking, but they would need to rethink how much of the oval the cars would use. Its a very good endurance racing track, but wouldn't be best for F1.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Ah, the Garage facilities at Daytona are pretty top notch, with enough room for 20+ Daytona Prototypes, 30+ Grand Am cars and 50+ Koeini Challenge cars, during the Daytona 24hr race. Its pretty remarkable amount of garage space.

And a lot of NASCAR cars as well.

lol, [smacks self]

100+ Stock Cars at a time.

Quote from Highsider9 :

Laguna Seca.


Shame it won't happen due to obvious safety issues.

+1 for that, isn't this Mazda speedway nowdays?

I doubt that it won't happen too, maybe if they invent rails for tracks so there is no danger for driver, but probably then it still would be too risky as there is hills.

They should setup a street course in Washington DC. It would make sense to have the US Gran Prix at the capitol, wouldn't it?

Quote from lizardfolk :

Dare i say....DAYTONA????

If F1 drivers were complaining about the banking at Indy, they would soil themselves if a Daytona GP was announced!

even though F1 already has Monza. I'd still like to see them on streets of St. Petersburg