More US races could mean 'pain' for Austin GP

Oct.22 - US grand prix promoter Bobby Epstein has warned that more races in America could actually hurt F1 initially.

With US media tycoon John Malone's Liberty Media taking over the sport, there is talk of an expansion of the calendar beyond 21 races and potentially more in the States.

The Guardian newspaper said Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New Jersey are among the possible new venues, but F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said adding more US races will be "difficult".

And Austin's US GP promoter Epstein agrees that sharing the F1 market with more venues in America will be challenging.

"If we have more races here we will be competing for a limited base of fans, and we could be weaker for a number of years," he warned.

"Five or 10 years down the road we would build a bigger audience overall. But there could be some pain first."

A concert with Taylor Swift is another attraction at the 2016 US GP, but Epstein admitted it is a challenging market to compete "for the entertainment dollar".

"Promoters have to become more creative," he said. "I would like to see more money spent on promoting the sport. I think fees should be lower so we can lower the ticket prices."

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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