“Is the priority to ensure we feed mouths with 4,5 million euros, or to allocate these four million to Formula 1? Barcelona must define its priorities, which are fundamental rights and democracy, and, above all, people. »
It is with such a declaration that the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, elected last June, justifies that, according to her, the Formula 1 and MotoGP Grand Prix which take place on the Montmelo circuit, are not a priority and are only aimed at " an elite ".
Failing to be populist, we can qualify this speech as opportunistic, since not only does it tend to separate two parts of the population, but above all it completely ignores the economic fallout generated by these two events. Namely, neither more nor less than 340 million Euros in 2015, according to the DEP institute, not to mention the 4000 people living directly from the circuit's activities and the 10 working there occasionally.
Each F1 spectator spends on average 1008 euros during the weekend, compared to 533 for MotoGP. Two thirds of them reside in Barcelona during the F1 GP, compared to only half for MotoGP. During these two weekends, 20 million are spent in hotels in the Catalan capital.
But all this obviously does not count, in the eyes of Ada Colau, who will undoubtedly eliminate her subsidy of 4 million Euros to the circuit from next year, in an attempt to have both the butter and the money of the butter…
Rest assured, the MotoGP and F1 Grands Prix do not seem to be in danger, except that it is undoubtedly ultimately you, the elite, who will have to pay a small part of these 4 million euros...
One of the leaders of Dorna, Manel Arroyo: “It's incredible that we periodically have to remind ourselves of the benefits of infrastructure. »
