Liberty Media blames Bernie Ecclestone for F1’s growing calendar problems. Liberty blames Bernie Ecclestone for F1's growing calendar problems.

Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has blamed Bernie Ecclestone for creating some of the problems that Formula 1’s new owner is facing as it attempts to renew grand prix contracts.

Although the new management has managed to extend some race deals in the past two years, this year the contracts of the British, German, Spanish and Italian and Mexican GPs are all coming to an end – and no renewals have been agreed as yet.

In addition to differences of opinion over hosting fees, Mexico and Spain both have issues with the public funding that has hitherto supported the races.

Greg Maffei said that former F1 boss Ecclestone had not helped matters by suggesting that races were paying too much under the very deals that he originally put together: “Bernie had done a very good job, arguably too good a job, and had drained the promoters,” Maffei told a Deutsche Bank conference – “And we got a lot of blow back, partly because we’re public now and they can see the prices, and also partly because Bernie suggested to a lot of them that they were overpaying. That didn’t help the cause. Exacerbating that are governments trying to pull back subsidies, in Mexico, other places – Spain. So that creates some challenges.” – he explained.

Asked about potential new events, Maffei suggested that a race in Africa was among those high on the agenda: “We remain working on Miami, but there are obstacles to a lot of that,” he said. – “We’ve looked at other alternatives in the US, including Las Vegas [where F1 raced in 1981/82, pictured above]. We’ve looked at other alternatives in Africa. We’re trying to solidify some of the western European races and bring those in. That core fanbase is strong, and there are some in the works that may very well come to pass in those traditional western European places. You’re always trying to balance both solidifying where you are strong, or core, which is historically western Europe, and then adding other things, like expansion to Vietnam, potentially a second race in China, potentially a race in Africa. We’re not yet prepared to announce any, but there’s a careful mix or blend of where you want to grow and where you want to solidify.” – he added.

The Vietnam GP secured for 2020 is the first new event Liberty has added to the calendar. Greg Maffei said it “will be more exciting and a positive improvement over Malaysia, which was not differentiated enough from Singapore”.