Finnish Grand Prix, Anyone? No? Are you sure…?

A Finnish Grand Prix seems to be under discussion by the powers that be in Formula One but with the plethora of issues the sport is already facing, or avoiding, is this part of the solution or just another part of the problem?

The reports that discussions have been held between Formula One’s top Andy Warhol impersonator, Bernie Ecclestone, and the Finns over a possible Finnish Grand Prix are just about par for the course as the sport slumbers fitfully through a summer holiday after an explosively good Hungarian Grand Prix. The wheel-to-wheel excitement of that race rather showed up the rest of the season for the damp squib it has been. The remainder of the season ahead facing a tricky comparison.

Finnish Grand Prix

• A possibility being explored
• Huge cost a central issue
• Formula One on ice?

Of course Bernie and his cronies will be gambling news coverage of that particularly interesting race will draw back some of the fans that have slipped away, but that won’t last if the races go back to a predictable parade led by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. This is unfortunately all too likely. However whether the solution to the quagmire of Formula One’s repetitive nature is to add a Finnish Grand Prix is highly questionable.

In essence, of course, every country should have the opportunity to host a Grand Prix. That would be only fair. However since F1 isn’t a sport but a business those who want the opportunity to have the circus turn up once a year have to shell out a small fortune to do so. The infrastructure, the track, the fees, these things don’t come cheap and given how even the Germans had a problem getting it together this year what hope is there really for a Finnish Grand Prix?

Could A Finnish Grand Prix Go Ahead?

Marja-Leena Lappalaninen, wife of former racing driver Robert Lappalainen, is looking into the feasibility of holding an event in Finland. She has a bit of experience with this sort of thing having been part of the driving force that pushed German Touring Car racing to hold some races in Helsinki back in the mid nineteen nineties. Those events were successful, but it’s one thing to hold a couple of one-off events and quite another to have the facilities year in year.

A Finnish Grand Prix would require a new track for a start, and whilst Marja-Leena looks into the possibilities of stretching a 4.5km track along the coast on and around the Hernesaari portion of Helsinki, which would have the beautiful backdrop of the Baltic, we aren’t talking chump change. Investors would need to put up a hundred million to get the ball rolling and a 25% on top each year for the rights to the franchise. In today’s economy that’s a tall order.

If you’re Finnish gambling laws of averages will help pan this idea out into something more serious, more concrete plans or negotiations, I’d suggest you rein in your enthusiasm. Investors aren’t flocking to F1 right now, and the idea they’d rush to sponsor a Finnish Grand Prix seems unlikely. Formula One is popular in Finland, where driving is a passion, and fans avidly follow their fellow countrymen like Bottas and Raikkonen as they take to the grid every couple of weekends, but is that enough?

Finnish Grand Prix Would Need Heavy Investment

Personally I think the solution obvious. A Finnish Grand Prix could be amazing, but instead of populating the middle of the season in favorable, if changeable, conditions, I think the Finns should hold it at either one end of the season or the other. I can’t think of anything that would make for a more exciting Formula One race than ice and snow covering the track. I think you’d get quite a few investors then, particular from the insurance companies.

Wouldn’t you like to watch the posh boys and their hyper expensive go-karts of Formula One attempt to get an over-engineered, over-powered, slick tired car around an icy turn one? I know I would. Rally cars manage it every season, why shouldn’t F1 do the same? Okay, okay, so they can have spiked tires too, fine, but if you haven’t got a little bit excited at the idea of Formula One on Ice there really is no hope for you, and probably not for a Finnish Grand Prix either.

Those that like to bet on sports in Finland, at ComeOn! Sportsbook or Chinese casinos, and the like, might well be looking forward to steadily winning small amounts of Hamilton’s inevitable championship win, but what Formula One needs is some more unpredictability and an icy Finnish Grand Prix could provide just that. Unfortunately the massively spiraling costs of Formula One, that have negatively impacted teams, the tracks and the spirit of racing, probably means we aren’t destined to see this happen anytime soon.