Austin F1 Event At COTA Looks To Avoid Conflict With UT Football Home Game

Officials with Circuit of the Americas, “hoping to avoid a scheduling conflict” with a Univ. of Texas home football game, are “trying to move the date of next year’s Formula One race” in Austin, according to Dave Doolittle of the AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN. FIA’s World Motor Sport Council yesterday “released a 2013 calendar that keeps the Austin F1 race on Nov. 17.” Practice would be “held on Nov. 15 with qualifying to take place the next day.” Texas has a “home game against Oklahoma State scheduled for Nov. 16.” COTA Chair Bobby Epstein in an e-mail wrote, “Circuit of the Americas has expressed our strong preference for an alternate race date in 2013. We understand that setting a global calendar can be very challenging, involves many factors and is out of our control. We feel confident that Formula One has taken our concerns seriously and is working earnestly towards a collective solution.” FIA President Nick Craw in an e-mail wrote that officials are “still trying to move the race date, but he gave no other details” (AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 12/6).

TAKE ME BACK TO CONSTANTINOPLE? REUTERS' Alan Baldwin reported F1 “could have 20 races again next season” after the FIA “pencilled in a mystery European round in July to fill a space left by the postponed Grand Prix of America in New Jersey.” The FIA yesterday said that the German Grand Prix would “switch from July 14 to July 7 with July 21 now ‘reserved for another F1 European event’ subject to approval of national bodies.” Speculation “focused mainly on the possible return of the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul.” F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone “dropped a hint on Tuesday when he told Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport that he was going to Istanbul ‘to try and revive the Turkish Grand Prix and take part in the world council’” (REUTERS, 12/5).