No Formula 1 Grand Prix for London’s Olympic Stadium

It’s anything but a surprise, but it’s now official: London will not host F1 as the Olympic Stadium has just been allocated to the West Ham football club.

In June 2012, a media frenzy arose from Bernie Ecclestone’s statement that he would be willing to personally pay $35 million to allow the British capital to host an event.

As we said at the time, this hypothesis was highly improbable, with no real chance of success. The primary reason was that it was never intended to be successful! Indeed, this media statement must be understood in its context. At the time, it took place… the day after Gehrard Gribkowsky was sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison for bribery in the case of the sale of F1 to CVC.

“But Bernie Ecclestone is obviously a key element of this affair, and any story was good to communicate on other elements than the Gribkowsky affair. The buzz created by McLaren with a video made by its sponsor Santander showing a potential circuit in the streets of London, in anticipation of the start of the Olympic Games, was then seen as an interesting solution to unleash passions on the Internet.”

Nonetheless, now that both the Olympic Games frenzy and the one surrounding the German banker have subsided, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has decided to put an end to this possibility by rejecting the offer made by the mysterious Intelligent Transport Solutions Ltd. to host a Formula 1 event in and around the Olympic Stadium.

The holders of this offer were not deemed credible because the LLDC stated in its press release that they presented too many uncertainties on key aspects of their offer and on the assumptions of their business plan.

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr