SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Money for Hockenheim yet to be settled

The German Grand Prix is included on the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, despite financial problems at the Hockenheimring.

The Germans says that a final decision about the race will be made next week. The largest shareholder in Hockenheimring GmbH is the town of Hockenheim and it has said on several occasions that it cannot afford to make any more losses from the race and needs to support of the state government to maintain the race. This is believed to be around $8m. The advantage that Hockenheim has is that it is located in the Baden-Wurttemberg state, but is close to the border of the Rhineland-Palatinate and also the state of Hesse, all three of which benefit to some extent from the race. Hesse is ruled by the same Christian Democrat party that is in power in Baden-Wurttemberg. The bad news is that the Rhineland-Palatinate is the primary backer of the rival Nurburgring. Each state consists of a number of districts, called Landkreise, which have funding for local government activities.