Melbourne Grand Prix

how much longer will it last there? cant see it being there for too many more years...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/mot...195866226.html

The only way the Melbourne F1 event can contiue successfully (IMO) is to allow the V8 Supercars a championship event there. Indy on the Gold Coast was flailing before the V8's started racing there in championship events.

Before that, the teams would pull their very old spare cars out to race for fear of crashing their #1 race car. The racing was still exciting and pulled a reasonably large crowd but since running championship events there, numbers have definately improved.

The Albert Park circuit provides much more entertaining racing than Surfers, with a great deal more passing opportunities and greater run-off areas preventing drivers from shying away on passing manoeuvres. Provide the right entertainment, and the people will come.

Melbourne is a fantastic event and so is Surfers. Adelaide is better than both and V8s headline the event! Motorsport (thanks to the V8s) is ranked 3rd of the most popular sports attended in Australia. Shouldn't this also play a part in the solution to Albert Park's losses?

ATTENDANCE AT MAIN SPORTS, By sex
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]=gif

Source: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/4174.0

That sounds like a good idea, the V8’s are obviously huge in Australia, interesting stats.

We did find it bloody quite this year and didn’t spot the hordes of Kiwi’s that we normally do, the whole of Melbourne was a buzz years ago but this time around it was just another day, there seems and almost hatred for the F1. The AFL was huge, we couldn’t believe the amount of people going to watch it, the passion was great!

Nine out of ten people around us at the Who Concert were purely there for The Who and couldn’t have given two hoot about the F1, poo pooing it even.

Can’t understand how people rate the likes of Bathurst better than the Melbourne F1.

Sad really, it’s an awesome event that I plan and save hard to attend whenever I can and I always have the time of my year!

It'll be there for a while yet. The Melbourne F1 GP has been on a rocky road since it returned to Albert Park in '96 with all the greenys worried about their duckys getting scared off (remember these yellow ribbon protesters? haha). People were writing the event off before it even began in '96 and here we are in 2009 still with the event. The majority of Australian's seem to just hate motorsport, which is a shame.

I can see how Australian motorsport enthusiasts can see an event like Bathurst as being 'better' than the F1 GP event as it's got much more history behind it relating to Australia.
At the end of the day they're both amazing events that should be embraced and can't really say if one is better than the other because they're completely different.

Further proof gentlemen, that the V8's need to be included as a Championship event at the Australian GP.

Rolling accross the screen this morning on Sunrise was written something along the lines of Ticket sales increase despite A1GP cancellation.

Now, you can't tell me that 50% more V8 racing DIDN'T have anything to do with increased ticket sales compared to this time last year. Also, the new Australian Legends category will pull all the old school petrol heads out of retirement too!