Rio to Host Brazilian Grand Prix as Early as 2020

Paulo Mendonça · May 11, 2019

Well, I read a piece of news that said São Paulo exercised an option of extending the contract until 2025.

Source: https://www.msn.com/pt-br/esportes/formula1/prefeitura-de-são-paulo-já-exerceu-opção-prevista-para-manter-fórmula-1-em-interlagos-até-2025-diz-jornalista/ar-AAB8EaN

But anyways... There's very low chances of this Rio GP going forward.

michelforest · May 11, 2019

Paulo Mendonça said:
There's very low chances of this Rio GP going forward.

Hope so! What the racing world needs now is *not* another Tilke circuit.

Vic Flange · May 11, 2019

What is Liberty Media’s motto ?
‘If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is’ ?

Interlagos is a wonderful track. It should stay.

DaniloFC · May 11, 2019

this is bullshit, new president said that to calm down Rio population. HistoricInterlagos for always!! Just Sao Paulo city has the regular structure to receive F1

Jugulador · May 11, 2019

I'm Brazilian and this will not happen.

1 - Interlagos still have the 2020 contract with F1.

2 - The terrain claimed for this Rio track have a lot of license and use problems that are nearly impossible to solve in just a year (or in teen or twenty).

3 - The prefecture of Rio de Janeiro is broken and can't put money into this. The Rio de Janeiro state government is broken and can't put money into this. There is no private investor that is crazy enough to put money into this.

4 - Even if they can build a racing track there, the region have no infrastructure to hold an event as big as F1. The terrain is in between of some favelas and there is no mass-trans even near there, no hotels, no shopping centers, restaurants or anything that helps the event.

5 - Rio is struggling with crime problems that are very far from São Paulo's reality (the city have evolved a long way in this subject since 1990 and Rio only got worst).

6 - The more important is: WHY THE F*CK the event should leave São Paulo, that has a ready to use racing track that almost everybody like/love, with all infrastructure around to serve the public, FIA and teams in a good urbanized area, with tradition and strong investors supporting the event?

The answer is "Jair Bolsonaro is talking s**t again". The only reason to change to Rio is to enforce some corruption plan, because the building process and licenses are aways a great way to make some dirt money.

Rio de Janeiro destroyed their only (and amazing) racing track (Jacarepagua)... and there were great reasons to do that. Think about it.

paracletus · May 11, 2019

It is terrible that the Piquet circuit was demolished for damn olympics. In sims it is brilliant.

Yeah, not believing this for the time being at least. Interlagos, it is one of the handful of interesting tracks left in F1 calender. Has to stay.

Luciano Santos Filho · May 11, 2019

Lentoveloz said:
I'm Brazilian and I've read and heard a lot about it. At the moment the probability of this racetrack being built is zero.

Another Brazilian here, just to confirm that this is nonsense, it is very unlikely that this track will ever be built. And even if so, it is not going to be finished for 2020 GP.

Good, because we don’t need another classic track to be replaced by another Tylkodrome.

Will Mazeo · May 11, 2019

I'm going to say if reforms are approved the hype of the economy boom will make this project go ahead. If it will get F1 or not is another history, but Rio does have a much bigger tourism appeal than Sao Paulo, if they go for this I dont think SP would win.

Jugulador · May 12, 2019

Will Mazeo said:
I'm going to say if reforms are approved the hype of the economy boom will make this project go ahead. If it will get F1 or not is another history, but Rio does have a much bigger tourism appeal than Sao Paulo, if they go for this I dont think SP would win.

São Paulo receives much more tourists than Rio de Janeiro. The city have much more infrastructure and the people that travels to Brazil for the F1GP usually are Brazilians from other cities or people from neighbor countries. For this profile of tourist is more important to have options in hotel, food and easy city-trans, because they usually just go for the racing.

PS: São Paulo is the more underrated big city in the world. Rio is kinda overrated.

Will Mazeo · May 12, 2019

SP tourism is more business related. Rio is more "fun" related.
And that's the whole point... being overrated sells.
Only a miracle to approve these reforms anyway. Shame, this could be the best govt we had in our history.

Jugulador · May 14, 2019

Will Mazeo said:
SP tourism is more business related. Rio is more "fun" related.
And that's the whole point... being overrated sells.
Only a miracle to approve these reforms anyway. Shame, this could be the best govt we had in our history.

You could be right... 10 or 20 years ago.

Entertainment tourism in São Paulo is growing a lot on last decades, and Rio de Janeiro had a slower growing with a decaying on the last few years. The two biggest tourism incomes in Rio are the Carnival and New Year Party... but by 2014 São Paulo surpassed them on the NYP and in 2019 the SP carnival surpassed them by far.

Even them, this is an over simplification of reality. Rio could still be more appealing to tourists from places like Euro, NA, Japan and other people who can see an appeal in tropical beachs or kids prostitution (that is way more common in RJ than in SP). But the foreign target audience for Brazilian F1 GP is the folks from other South America countries and for them those tropical beaches are not that appealing (to Argentina and Uruguay folks could be... but they are not far from better Brazilian beaches and use to travel to them during the year... a lot of tourists more than once).

Will Mazeo · May 14, 2019

Like I said Rio has more appeal and you got that right, people from other south american countries could go for other beaches but you got F1 there they can go for 2 things instead.
I get it you love SP way too much lol, I couldn't care less about both cities tbh so whatever dude.

Jugulador · May 15, 2019

Will Mazeo said:
Like I said Rio has more appeal and you got that right, people from other south american countries could go for other beaches but you got F1 there they can go for 2 things instead.
I get it you love SP way too much lol, I couldn't care less about both cities tbh so whatever dude.

It's not about what you care or my opinion about SP and RJ... it's about how much you know the subject that you're talking about and what is fact. Today São Paulo beats Rio on both entertainment and business tourism. This is both official government and private institutes data and the profile of the Brazilian F1GP regular public. Not subject of opinion.