Plan to Modernise Hockenheim Unveiled

Baden-Wuerttemberg State Premier Erwin Teufel on Saturday unveiled a plan to modernise the Hockenheim track so it could remain the venue of the German Grand Prix.

Teufel said he had informed Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone about a project to shorten the circuit from 6.8 to some four kilometres and improve its infrastructure for an estimated cost of 95 million marks ($44.92 million).

Ecclestone had told local officials that Hockenheim, contracted to hold the race until 2001, could not keep it after that unless it underwent a major facelift.

Teufel's office said in a statement released on Saturday that Teufel and the State Premier of neighbouring Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, would meet Ecclestone on Sunday at Hockenheim to discuss the future of the track.

Attached to the statement was a copy of Teufel's letter to Ecclestone detailing the project and saying Baden-Wuerttemberg would help finance it.

The southwestern circuit has hardly changed since it first staged the German Grand Prix 30 years ago and is under threat to lose the race to a brand new track outside Berlin due to be inaugurated next month, the Lausitzring.