Nurburgring chief hits out at F1 for abandoning traditional events like German GP. Nurburgring chief hits out at F1.

In a recent interview for Motorsport Total, Ingo Boder, boss of the Nurburgring in Germany, has hit out at Formula 1 explaining that the sport is not doing enough in order to help host events at traditional and more famous tracks.

Despite the fact that the Formula 1 calendar now includes a record 23 events, several famous European circuits and Grands Prix no longer found a place on the schedule or face uncertainty over their future in recent times as a result of financial issues in being able to organize a race. Among them there are also the two main circuits in Germany, the Nurburgring and Hockenheim, that at one point both featured as part of the furniture on the race calendar before alternating and dropping off altogether back in 2019.

The German Grand Prix has not run since and while the Nurburgring hosted the Eifel Grand Prix in 2020 as a last minute solution due to the problems caused by the pandemic, it did not have a real chance of keeping its place on the long term.

The Nurburgring circuit, which has staged 41 Formula 1 events and first featured in the world championship in 1951, has now not been able to put the funds together to stage a race for nine years outside of its one-off showing in 2020.

In recent years, Formula 1 decided to accept offers from more commercially lucrative locations, such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Bahrain has also signed a new contract to remain on the calendar until 2036. Given the circumstances, Nurburgring managing director Ingo Boder explains insists there is basically no chance his track can financially be able to support hosting a one-off race let alone sign a long term contract.

‘We are talking about very high entry fees and the income that we can generate,’ Ingo Boder said, as reported by motorsport-total – “Unfortunately, there is always a gap that is far too large that we as a medium-sized company simply cannot bridge. Without private investment and with the entry fees of Formula One we cannot even begin to risk our annual result in order to only have Formula One here once. We don’t see ourselves on an equal footing with these states [Qatar or Saudi Arabia]. We [have] no big investor in the background who wants or can spend that much money just for a Formula One race. I think that’s the biggest obstacle to a Formula One race in Germany.” – he explained.

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Ingo Boder remains hopeful of Formula 1 returning to Germany in the future, adding that Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali was open to talks over how to make it financially viable for a return to Germany, which has a rich tradition in motorsport.

However, he explained that an agreement is possible only likely to work if concessions can be made: “We have to see: is there a way for Formula One to price the traditional racetracks differently, yes or no?. We very much welcome the fact that Domenicali has at least signaled a willingness to talk. Domenicali had said at the beginning of the year that he wanted to stimulate an “open discussion”. – he concluded.