Hockenheim confident of breaking even

The venue lost more than five million Euros when it last hosted the race in 2008, but since then it has restructured its deal with Formula One Management - with the two parties agreeing to share liabilities.

Hockenheim's CEO Karl-Josef Schmidt has told AUTOSPORT that he has been left optimistic about the track's financial situation.

"We have the new agreement with Bernie Ecclestone, which relieves us of the burden we had before - where we made 5.3 million Euros loss from F1 in 2008," he explained.

"Now, envisaging we will have the same number of spectators as 2008 - about 62,000 - we will break even. That is the number we are expecting as a minimum, but the pre-sale is running well and we are confident we will have more than that."

Schmidt said that although German interest in the sport was high this year - thanks to the return of Michael Schumacher and the success of Sebastian Vettel - he was not expecting a return to the glory days of sell-out 100,000 crowds.

"Times have changed," he said. "We would be satisfied if we would have 70-75,000 spectators, and there is no reason we will get back to those numbers of 2000-2002."