Korea and Qatar unlikely to happen – Ecclestone

Two proposed events – Korea and Qatar – are unlikely to happen according to Bernie Ecclestone, despite the former having been included on the provisional 2015 calendar.

The latter meanwhile has been touted as potentially taking place in 2017 as Qatar looks to add another worldwide event to its sporting calendar alongside the World Cup and World Athletic Championships.

Ecclestone has however revealed that Korea had a contract to miss just one year before returning to the calendar, therefore their addition was for contractual purposes.

But with the race organisers keen to avoid the costs associated with hosting the event, it’s unlikely it will actually happen.

RelatedPosts

How the Austrian GP cemented F1 2025 as a two-horse race

5 hours ago

Toto Wolff: Kimi Antonelli’s ‘unfortunate’ Austria F1 error ‘can happen to the greats’

7 hours ago

“They would rather it not happen,” explained Ecclestone. “We have a contract with Korea… we have to put it on the calendar. If we hadn’t have done they could have sued us.

“We let them off for a year on the understanding they would be back,” he added.

Meanwhile Qatar would require permission from Bahrain to join the calendar as the Bahraini’s can veto any further races in the Gulf. Such an agreement looks unlikely, after Bahrain allowed the race in Abu Dhabi to go ahead giving the region two races.

“I explained to them [Abu Dhabi] the position that I was in and said you’d better ask the people in Bahrain if they are happy. If they are happy, I’m happy. If not, we won’t. So they got together and that’s what happened.  

“Then this other race [Qatar] has been proposed and I put the same people together and said ‘Can you sort this out between you?’ and they haven’t managed to do it.”