Ecclestone: Austin GP likely to be canceled

Ecclestone: Austin GP likely to be canceled:

The Austin Grand Prix will be removed from the schedule at the December 7^th FI A World Motor Sport Council meeting if things aren’t solved by that time. This is according to Ian Parkes’s interview with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone.

“We had an agreement with Full Throttle Productions.

“Everything was signed and sealed, but we kept putting things off like the dates, various letters of credit and things that should have been sent, but nothing ever happened.

“Then these other people (COTA) came on the scene, saying that they wanted to do things, but that they had problems with Tavo.

“They said they had the circuit, and that they wanted an agreement with me. I told them they had to sort out the contract with Tavo, which they said they would.

“But that has gone away now because we’ve cancelled Tavo’s contract as he was in breach.

“We’ve waited six months for him to remedy the breach. He knows full well why we’ve cancelled. He’s happy.

“But these other people haven’t got a contract. All we’ve asked them to do is get us a letter of credit.

“We are looking for security for money they are going to have to pay us. That is via a letter of credit, normally from a bank.

“If people don’t have the money they find it difficult to get the letter of credit, and so we don’t issue a contract.”

It seems that the details, oddly, are only coming from Ecclestone and neither of the parties involved in the project. If Tavo Hellmund’s contract was in breach, and I assume because he failed to secure a letter of credit, then this left Ecclestone to deal with the circuit itself and the investors who are behind the project.

While Bobby Epstein is assumed to be the majority player in this group, he has yet to provide a letter of credit according to Ecclestone. While that sounds easy, there are a whole host of issues attached to that statement.

Firstly, Ecclestone is presuming Epstein agrees to all the nuances of the deal and will provide a LOC agreeing to the terms of the deal. That is most likely not the case but I am speculating.

The interesting twist is the contract with Tavo is no longer valid. I assume it is due to a lack of an LOC and that was the rub. I am assuming Tavo’s ability to secure a LOC for several million dollars was not possible in the time frame that the contract called for.

As it is, it seems unless Epstein can negotiate a deal with Ecclestone and offer the commitment, the Austin Grand Prix is going to be canceled for 2012.