German Grand Prix to be staged at Hockenheim as Nürburgring loses out

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/15/german-grand-prix-hockenheim-nurburgring

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Hockenheim will stage Formula One’s German Grand Prix in July, it was announced on Thursday, as the final piece in the 2015 calendar was finally slotted into place.

The track hosted last year’s race and, according to tradition, should be alternated with the Nürburgring.

However, F1’s chief executive, Bernie Ecclestone, said: “It’s going to be at Hockenheim. We’re in the middle of doing something with them. It can’t be Nürburgring because there’s nobody there. We’ve got a contract in place [with Hockenheim]. We just have to amend the years of the contract. It was alternating with Nürburgring so we’ll just take that out.”

The race will be held on 19 July, two weeks after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

It looks unlikely that F1 will return to the Nürburgring any time soon. The track has shared the German Grand Prix with Hockenheim since 2006 but there has been a change of ownership and reports of financial difficulties.

So, following the recent and expected cancellation of the provisionally listed event in South Korea, the 20-race programme – which was first discussed at Monza at the beginning of September – is finally in place, starting with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on 15 March and concluding in Abu Dhabi on 29 November.

The new race on the calendar is the Mexican Grand Prix on 1 November; organisers of the USA round in Austin, Texas, on 25 October will be anxious to see how their already dwindling attendance figures will be affected by the decision to hold a grand prix in nearby Mexico only seven days later.

The entry list is expected to be announced at the end of the month, as the teams gear up for the season’s first testing session, which gets under way in Jerez on 1 February – followed by two more in Barcelona later in the month.

Marussia have already disappeared and time is now running out for Caterham’s administrator, Finbarr O’Connell, to find a new investor in time for the coming season. There are expected to be nine teams on the grid in Melbourne, though a number of outfits – such as Lotus and Sauber – remain in considerable difficulty because of the fundamentally unfair distribution of funds.

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes are once again expected to dominate a year that will feature few regulation changes but Red Bull and possibly Ferrari, encouraged by loopholes regarding homologation, are expected to narrow the gap.