Ecclestone talks up former Olympic site as home for future Greek grand prix

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The possibility of a Greek grand prix joining the formula one world championship calendar increased at the weekend when Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's commercial rights holder, made a private visit to Athens to discuss the prospect.

Ecclestone, who has made no secret of his desire to get rid of existing fixtures on the calendar to accommodate new events, went to view the Hellinikon Olympic complex to judge whether it might be possible to adapt the facilities to host a formula one event. It is understood that he was the guest of a private business consortium which wants Greece to construct a facility capable of hosting a world championship grand prix.

The venue under consideration is on the site of the former Athens airport which closed in 2001 and became the centre for the basketball, baseball and kayak events during the 2004 Olympic games. It has been suggested that the grandstands used for those events could be utilised for a formula one race."It is a beautiful location," said Greek motorsport journalist Dmitris Papadopoulos. "It's overlooking the water and could be made into a parkland circuit like the Albert Park track in Melbourne. It would be the best possible prospect for a Greek grand prix."

It is understood that Ecclestone does not support mooted plans by the Greek government to build a track on a new site, either near Patras, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the capital, or at Orchomenos, near Livadia, about which he said at the end of his visit: "Why do you look for a place for a circuit that is a further 80km from Athens? You have everything here."

He would like to reduce the number of races held in Italy and Germany from two to one in the longer term to offer the possibility of new fixtures elsewhere. "I am not against a formula one race track being built in Greece, but not in a residential area and only with the appropriate infrastructure and facilities," he said last year.

Meanwhile the Renault team will roll out their all-new R26 this morning at the Jerez circuit in Spain. It is the car in which Fernando Alonso will defend his world championship starting in Bahrain on March 12, but Giancarlo Fisichella will give the car its preliminary shakedown, the Italian hoping for extra support from the team this year after Alonso's decision to move to McLaren in 2007. Alonso will take over the car on Thursday after spending the first two days of the test at the wheel of the interim R25 test car equipped with the team's new 2.4-litre V8 engine.

"The team has done a fantastic job so far," said Bob Bell, Renault's chassis technical director. "The programme for the R26 was very tight and that put pressure on everybody to rise to the challenge of producing the car on time. However, the car build went smoothly and we began static testing of the first chassis here at [our base at] Enstone before Christmas. We are on time and that does great credit to the whole team."

Renault will be sharing the track with the Ferrari team, whose seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher will join the test drivers Luca Badoer and Marc Gene for development work on Maranello's new V8. The Ferrari F2006 is expected to undergo its first shakedown run at Fiorano next week followed by an official unveiling at Mugello a few days later.


Source
Alan Henry
The Guardian