13/04/2009
NEWS STORY
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Unlike some websites, Pitpass rarely crows about the speed with which it brings its many exclusive news stories to its readers. However, when it takes other outlets over seven months to catch up then that's a slightly different matter.
On this occasion however, we are prepared to make an exception and to provide a little bit of insight into how we were able to bring you a news story even before F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was aware of it.
Over the Easter weekend the F1 media has been filling up with allegedly exclusive news about New York being the most likely location of a Grand Prix if F1 returns to the United States. "It is the one place where someone could make a business out of it," Ecclestone is quoted as saying, adding that "apart from Indianapolis ... there is nowhere in America we could go to and hold our head up and say 'this is comparable to other circuits we are building around the world'."
You won't have seen this reported on Pitpass over the past few days and there's good reason: for this 'news' was first brought to its readers in August last year.
Back then we revealed that in the previous few weeks there had been a flurry of interest in F1 from US real estate firms and banks, particularly those based in the New York area. We even revealed that the likely location of the race, in New York itself, is a tract of land featuring old rail-yards to the west of Manhattan. New York committed a vast amount of funds to feasibility studies about developing the area which was due to host the main arena for the city's failed bid to stage the 2012 Olympics.
So how did we know that New York was putting together an F1 bid seven months before Ecclestone told the media?
Truth be told, Pitpass probably knew before Ecclestone as our business editor Chris Sylt also happens to author Formula Money, the only business guide to F1. Formula Money contains all the key figures about how the sport operates and therefore it's no surprise that when cities begin to plan their GP bids, long before they even propose it to Ecclestone, one of the first things they do is get hold of a copy in order to evaluate whether they can afford to host a race. Many then take up Sylt as a consultant and although he refuses to reveal the names of his clients he is happy to tell which areas they come from, unless they say otherwise.
The upshot of this is not only that the news about the preferred status of New York as a location for the US GP is seven months old, but also to look at what else is on the horizon.
Sylt points to a GP bid which has long been on the back-burner but may be a little hotter than expected. Look to the US and then head south of the border.