As we have seen many times, Bernie Ecclestone’s public proclamations about most things in Formula 1 need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Often he is bang on the mark, but often he is deliberately not, because it does not suit him to say things as they really are, as he is in negotiation with a race promoter or a television station. This week, for example, he has been rather critical of Lewis Hamilton’s new management, something which I feel is absolutely right. Lewis was not his usual self in 2011 and there were reasons for that. OK, the guy wants a life of his own, without having his Dad always looking over his shoulder, telling him what to do, but trying to go it alone with a company that is focussed on celebrity, rather than performance, is simply not a good idea. Lewis may like the Hollywood lifestyle and be impressed by the people he meets, but his future depends on being focussed on F1, in the same way that Sebastian Vettel allows no distractions at all.

Bernie knows exactly what he is doing and plays the media as Herbert van Karajan used to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. A touch here, a touch there, a whisper to the right… and so on. Reading Ecclestone is an imprecise art, because we never know all the facts and we are left guessing as to what is behind the story. The latest talk comes from the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, which has a reporter who is close to Bernie. The magazine is reporting that there could be three or four races in the United States of America in the future. Bernie says that there are nine races in Europe and that North America is about the same size. This is true if one adds the United States population of 300 million, to Canada’s 34 million and Mexico’s 112 million. This makes around 450 million, while the European Union total is 500 million.

The advantage is that the United States is a fully-developed consumer market, where there is money to spend on racing and there is a big gap in the market because of the troubles that have weakened open-wheeler racing in the last 15 years. Rather than waiting for the Middle East and Asia to develop, Formula 1 might be well-advised to move into the United States on a bigger scale, with at least one race in California (the obvious choice is to find a promoter to take over Long Beach). Much would depend on the success of Austin and the new race in New Jersey. Formula 1 did have three races in the US in 1982 one in Long Beach, one in Detroit and one in Las Vegas, and there were also races in Canada and Brazil, making a total of five in the American timezones. That was more than a quarter of the races, so there is no reason why there could not be a similar proportion in the future. The problem is finding the promoters who can see how to raise the money, particularly at the moment with many of the US states in a sorry financial situation and public money being hard to come by. There is no doubt that the two US races will be joined at some point soon by Mexico, in addition to Brazil and Canada, as usual. Whether it will get beyond that remains to be seen. The cynic in me says that Mr E is probably negotiating a new TV deal in the US, but I don’t see any reason why it would not be a great idea for F1 to expand in the US – if someone can be found to pay the bills. That happened in the unlikely environment of Texas, and has happened too in New Jersey, so why not California or Colorado as well? Using the business model of a Grand Prix increasing property values in an area could lure in some people who own land that they feel is undervalued. And when it comes to big developments – as we have seen in India – the odd $30 million is not such a huge amount.