AP Interview: Rosberg expects F1 merger with electric series

Associated PressOct 15, 2018, 2:09 PM EDT
Photo by Michel Porro/Getty Images for Heineken
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Highlighting fresh concerns about global warming, Nico Rosberg foresees an eventual merger between the fuel-guzzling Formula One championship and the more environmentally friendly, electric motorsport series.

The German driver retired from F1 after winning his only title in 2016, and he has since invested in the four-year-old Formula E championship, which he said is now worth 750 million euros ($870 million).

While F1 remains more attractive to sponsors and fans, the upstart series is showing increasing commercial appeal. Heineken, which already sponsors F1, was announced on Monday as the official beer and cider backer of the electric street racing championship under a five-year deal.

That unified approach to marketing across both series points to a future where they join forces.

“Maybe we will never even get to that point (where Formula E is bigger than F1) and we will just see a merger between Formula One and Formula E before that,” Rosberg said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “When the moment comes that Formula One needs to go electric, which will happen, maybe you will just see a merger then.”

They already share ownership. U.S.-based Liberty Media was already the biggest shareholder in Formula E when it bought F1 in 2017.

“The step for Formula One to go electric will be a big and difficult one,” Rosberg said. “If that ever happens.”

It might become inevitable, with a fast-warming planet to be protected, and sports conscious of its role. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a gloomy report last week which said the difference between life and death for multitudes of people around the world could be whether world leaders find a way to reduce future warming caused by humans by less than a single degree Fahrenheit.

“It’s a real problem out there in the world and we need to do what we can as fast as possible to help all together,” Rosberg said.

“If the whole world is selling and driving electric cars,” he added, “it doesn’t make sense for Formula One to be combustion engines, so that moment will come. The advantage is that Formula One and Formula E have the same owner – John Malone.”

Although the cars are quieter compared to the ear-splitting, fuel-guzzling engines in F1, the new Gen 2 models which run faster and longer have been introduced.

Nissan and BMW will be debuting on the grid when the fifth Formula E championship begins in Saudi Arabia in December. There has also been a high-profile signing for the series: Former F1 driver Felipe Massa racing for Venturi, the Monaco-based team co-owned by actor Leonardo Di Caprio.

Rosberg is already looking forward to the following season when Mercedes-Benz and Porsche appear on the grid.

“That will be a spectacle everyone will want to watch,” Rosberg said. “They need to showcase their electric technology in Formula E. None of them can afford to lose.”

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Roger Penske vows new downtown Detroit GP will be bigger than the Super Bowl for city

By Jun 1, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
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DETROIT – He helped spearhead bringing the town a Super Bowl 17 years ago, but Roger Penske believes the reimagined Chevrolet Detroit GP is his greatest gift to the Motor City.

“It’s bigger than the Super Bowl from an impact within the city,” Penske told NBC Sports. “Maybe not with the sponsors and TV, but for the city of Detroit, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.

“We’ve got to give back individually and collectively, and I think we as a company in Michigan and in Detroit, it’s something we know how to do. It shows we’re committed. Someone needs to take that flag and run it down through town. And that’s what we’re trying to do as a company. We’re trying to give back to the city.”

After 30 years of being run on Belle Isle, the race course has been moved to a new nine-turn, 1.7-mile downtown layout that will be the centerpiece of an event weekend that is designed to promote a festival and community atmosphere.

There will be concerts in the adjacent Hart Plaza. Local businesses from Detroit’s seven districts have been invited to hawk their wares to new clientele. Boys and Girls Clubs from the city have designed murals that will line the track’s walls with images of diversity, inclusion and what Detroit means through the eyes of youth.

And in the biggest show of altruism, more than half the circuit will be open for free admission. The track is building 4-foot viewing platforms that can hold 150 people for watching the long Jefferson Avenue straightaway and other sections of the track.

Detroit GP chairman Bud Denker, a longtime key lieutenant across Penske’s various companies, has overseen more than $20 million invested in infrastructure.

The race is essentially Penske’s love letter to the city where he made much of his fame as one of Detroit’s most famous automotive icons, both as a captain of industry with a global dealership network and as a racing magnate (who just won his record 19th Indy 500 with Josef Newgarden breaking through for his first victory on the Brickyard oval).

During six decades in racing, Penske, 86, also has run many racetracks (most notably Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also speedways in Michigan, California and Pennsylvania), and much of that expertise has been applied in Detroit.

“And then the ability for us to reach out to our sponsor base, and then the business community, which Bud is tied in with the key executives in the city of Detroit, bringing them all together,” Penske said. “It makes a big difference.

“The Super Bowl is really about the people that fly in for the Super Bowl. It’s a big corporate event, and the tickets are expensive. And the TV is obviously the best in the world. What we’ve done is taken that same playbook but made it important to everyone in Detroit. Anyone that wants to can come to the race for free, can stand on a platform or they can buy a ticket and sit in the grandstands or be in a suite. It’s really multiple choice, but it is giving it to the city of Detroit. I think it’s important when you think of these big cities across the country today that are having a lot of these issues.”

Denker said the Detroit Grand Prix is hoping for “an amazingly attended event” but is unsure of crowd estimates with much of the track offering free viewing. The race easily could handle a crowd of at least 50,000 daily (which is what the Movement Music Festival draws in Hart Plaza) and probably tens of thousands more in a sprawling track footprint along the city’s riverwalk.

Penske is hoping for a larger crowd than Belle Isle, which was limited to about 30,000 fans daily because of off-site parking and restricted fan access at a track that was located in a public park.

The downtown course will have some unique features, including a “split” pit lane on an all-new concrete (part of $15 million spent on resurfaced roads, new barriers and catchfencing … as well as 252 manhole covers that were welded down).

A $5 million, 80,000-square-foot hospitality chalet will be located adjacent to the paddock and pit area. The two-story structure, which was imported from the 16th hole of the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, will offer 70 chalets (up from 23 suites at Belle Isle last year). It was built by InProduction, the same company that installed the popular HyVee-branded grandstands and suites at Iowa Speedway last year.

Penske said the state, city, county and General Motors each owned parts of the track, and their cooperation was needed to move streetlights and in changing apexes of corners. Denker has spent the past 18 months meeting with city council members who represent Detroit’s seven districts, along with Mayor Mike Duggan. Penske said the local support could include an appearance by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer.

Denker and Detroit GP  president Michael Montri were inspired to move the Detroit course downtown after attending the inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We saw what an impact it made on that city in August of 2021 and we came back from there and said boy could it ever work to bring it downtown in Detroit again,” Denker said. “We’ve really involved the whole community of Detroit, and the idea of bringing our city together is what the mayor and city council and our governor are so excited about. The dream we have is now coming to fruition.

“When you see the infrastructure downtown and the bridges over the roads we’ve built and the graphics, and everything is centered around the Renaissance Center as your backdrop, it’s just amazing.”