Steve Price: Victoria must dump the F1 Grand Prix

The same Labor government which ripped up a deal to stage the Commonwealth Games needs to tell the F1 bosses that the 2025 event will be Melbourne’s last after almost 30 years.

Despite being a self-proclaimed lover of the Grand Prix, Steve Price thinks it must be banned due to the state’s debt. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Victorian taxpayers can no longer afford the Formula 1 Grand Prix.

It needs to be dumped.

After 27 breathtaking years - the Labor Government that ripped up a deal to stage the Commonwealth Games - needs to tell the F1 circus it’s doing the same to the March event. The new Premier should tell F1 the 2025 race will be our last.

It’s clear Liberty Media the owners of the F1 series treats Melbourne like a poor cousin.

The prestige of opening the calendar in 2024 was ripped off us and handed to of all places Bahrain.

Melbourne is being treated like a “poor cousin” by the owners of the F1 series. Picture: Joe Castro

You clearly get the sense Liberty would have happily walked away from Melbourne when the previous contract ran out but so determined was a broke State Government not to be outdone by NSW, they signed us up with a dumb new deal.

Any competent government with the level of debt Victoria is saddled with – the worst in Australia – would have said enough is enough.

It would have been a happy ending with thirty years of memories. Sadly, the former Premier, according to recent media reports, inserted himself into the negotiations and sidelined the respected duo of GP Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott and his Chairman Paul Little.

This of course is the same Premier who tore up $600 million to not stage the Commonwealth Games in 2026. How outrageous that while breaking that deal Andrews and sports Minister Martin Pakula were not only secretly extending Melbourne’s expensive exposure to F1 for another 12 years but handing Liberty even more money.

It would have been a happy ending with thirty years of memories if Victoria said its debt meant it was too much to renew the contract. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

It seems the ex- Premier and his then Sports Minister were so desperate to get the deal over the line they were prepared to give away anything it took.

And in a breathtaking job for the boys’ deal Pakula has now been installed as chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. These people have no shame, you shouldn’t wonder why Mr Andrews isn’t welcome in many parts of Victoria including at golf clubs.

As a long-time supporter of Formula 1 racing in Australia- in Melbourne and before that my hometown of Adelaide- it gives me no satisfaction to finally side with the critics and admit the four-day event is a waste of taxpayers money and no argument about economic benefit washes anymore.

In 2024 we are in such an horrendous economic position as a state you can longer mount that argument. Back when Ron Walker with the support of then Premier Jeff Kennett convinced good old Bernie Ecclestone to bring F1 from Adelaide to Melbourne the state WASN’T broke.

Attracting global events and global TV audiences to focus on our capital made sense. Walker was an astute business tycoon and Ecclestone has claimed many times since that the deal took about ten minutes to seal.

The F1 has been a huge event on Melbourne’s calendar for almost three decades. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Daniel Ricciardo fans love an opportunity to take a snap with him on the trackside. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Those with long memories recall the anti-race brigade called Save Albert Park and their pathetic complaints that at one point turned nasty with security needed to keep Premier Kennett safe. Ron Walker approached my then radio station 3AW asking for our support for the race and we agreed to be on track broadcasters from the first race in 1996.

Ron secured us studio space above the F1 pits and allowed 3AW to use the area for corporate entertainment. He guaranteed that as long he was Chairman of the AGPC we would have that space at no cost.

I clearly remember standing in the producers’ area for that first Melbourne race with the legendary Allan Moffat doing special comments. The world watched horrified as Martin Brundle – now a commentator himself – was shunted into the back of David Coulthard flipping his F1 car into the air and turning it over.

Brundle was not hurt and famously ran back to the pits and jumped in the spare car – things were very different back then, but the smash put Melbourne on the F1 map.

The UK’s Lewis Hamilton driving the qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on April 01, 2023. Picture: Quinn Rooney

We had the fly-over of the F1-11’s screaming down the main straight with a deafening roar, there were grid girls in skimpy outfits plus the celebrity race that turned often into a smash and bash exercise.

I competed in two of those races without much success finishing tenth the second time around from memory. Embarrassingly in ninth place, one ahead of me, was then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. Those celebrity races were unique to Adelaide and then to Melbourne but sadly car manufacturers couldn’t justify the expense of trashing cars.

Victoria likewise can no longer afford to trash its economy.

As the AGPC annual report starkly showed when it was tabled in State Parliament last week it’s a money pit.

The figures when examined in isolation are eye- watering. The 2023 race cost Victorian taxpayers more than $100 million and we are thanks to Andrews and Pakula now saddled with that expense all the way out to 2037. Imagine what the annual race cost will be like when we get there.

The 2023 Grand Prix cost Victorian taxpayers more than $100m. Picture: Clive Mason

The wages bill for running the event according to that report jumped by nearly $7 million and if you look at the event management fee that includes the secret Liberty fee is nudging $120 million. All shades of Victorian Governments have been reluctant to really let us know how much F1 really costs us.

It’s no wonder when you look at those numbers.

I can’t stand the nimby whingers around toffy Middle Park and Albert Park, but the simple economics have caught up with Formula 1 in Melbourne and no spin from the new Labor administration should save it.

Victoria is broken, facilities in public hospitals resemble those of a third world country. Our roads – especially in regional Victoria are a pot holed disgrace, we can’t afford to give our police, nurses and firies a decent pay rise but we can run a four- day event at huge cost.

It would be nice to keep but let’s celebrate those thirty years we’ve already had and offer it up to whoever wants it. Potentially Sydney could pull it off and anyone from Melbourne desperate to go can spend a weekend up there.

It’s not worth keeping.

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Originally published as Steve Price: Victoria must dump the F1 Grand Prix