Why F1 could be blundering with its landmark new circuit deal

Another pillar of the Bernie Ecclestone era is about to be demolished by Formula 1's new owners. Three years after booting 'The Bolt' into a 'chairman emeritus' non-role, Liberty Media has taken the axe to one of Bernie's favourites: yes, Interlagos is about to become 'venue emeritus' of the Brazilian Grand Prix in favour of a freshly deforested parcel of land in Rio de Janeiro.

The plans, in motion since last year, come freighted with controversy owing to their environmental impact and the high-profile involvement of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a man who occupies a space in the political spectrum somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.

Interlagos, whose contract ends this year, has become a problem for Liberty because, as with Monaco, the promoter pays nothing to host the race. Bernie, incidentally, owns a rather large coffee plantation in the region.

Since Bernie's departure, other race promoters have taken the opportunity to try for a better bargain - and Sao Paulo's sweet deal, we understand, has become the proverbial stick with which disgruntled promoters attempt to beat F1 boss Chase Carey and chums.

Word is that F1 had managed to negotiate an offer of $20million from Interlagos, but that is dwarfed by the $65million the Rio promoter is willing to stump up (no pun intended).

Bolsonaro rather jumped the gun by announcing in May 2019 that Rio would replace Sao Paulo on the F1 calendar in 2020 - the Rio circuit isn't even built yet. But that might be about to change.

This month our colleagues at the Brazilian edition of Motorsport.com received a leaked letter from Carey to Rio's governor saying an agreement had been reached for F1 to race at the new circuit, subject to the redevelopment being approved by state environmental authorities.

Given the presence of 70,000 trees (according to the developer while other sources put the number at 180,000 on or around the proposed site) there was a predictable explosion of outrage.

Silence reigned only in that small but usually noisy constituency of Brazilian racing drivers who have publicly lent their support to Bolsonaro, but who also have business interests in the field of environmentally friendly transport. Usually no strangers to the microphone, these individuals could not be persuaded to venture an on-the-record opinion on this subject for love nor indeed money.

For all the claims that mitigations will make the proposed circuit net carbon neutral, steamrollering the last patch of green space in the greater Rio metropolitan area isn't a good look for F1, given the rights holder's much-trumpeted commitment to be net zero by 2030. The world champion certainly isn't amused.

Formula 1 might be navigating choppy waters, financially speaking - but to get involved in this project is tone-deaf at best, even if there happens to be 65 million reasons for doing so as opposed to 20 million

"I heard that it's potentially going to be sustainable," said Lewis Hamilton. "But the most sustainable thing you can do is not tear down any trees, particularly in a time where we're fighting a pandemic, and there continues to be a global crisis around the world."

The official spin is that this is a brownfield site - a disused military base no less - that a substantial proportion of the foliage is untenable, and that for the site to be redeveloped in any form the trees would have to be removed anyway.

In a statement the race promoter made assurances that all the trees destroyed - or "suppressed", to employ the more anodyne official euphemism - will be mitigated by plantings elsewhere. Anyone who has ever had any dealings with property developers and their ilk will be painfully aware of how empty such promises tend to be without proper enforcement. Given the involvement of Bolsonaro, known both within and without the country's borders as "the Brazilian Donald Trump", this enforcement is unlikely to be forthcoming.

Bolsonaro's record in this area is sketchy. Environmental groups have declaimed his involvement in deforesting the Amazon to develop farmland, as well as his inaction over wildfires which have destroyed swathes of the Pantanal as well as the Amazon. Bolsonaro's response has been to describe these claims as "disproportionate", although he has not deigned to outline what they are disproportionate to.

Rio has hosted the Brazilian Grand Prix before but the Jacarepagua circuit was demolished to make way for facilities to host the 2016 Olympics.

Protestors have claimed that the environmental impact report commissioned by the promoter included only nine of the 21 endangered species present in the forest. One, the cloud fish, was added in a later version.

The president hails from Sao Paulo but owes the area no favours politically. Quite the opposite - one of his rivals, Joao Doria, is the state governor, so robbing Sao Paulo of its grand prix must be seen in the wider context of political gamesmanship.

Formula 1 might be navigating choppy waters, financially speaking - but to get involved in this project is tone-deaf at best, even if there happens to be 65 million reasons for doing so as opposed to 20 million. Especially when the proposed circuit looks like a pound-shop version of Bahrain...