Has Kennett stuffed it?

Who is Kennett? And what is "it"?

Kennett is Jeff Kennett, the Premier of the Australian state of Victoria, the capital of which is Melbourne, and the man who "stole" the GP away from Adelaide.

"It" is not so much the GP itself, but the timing of the GP. Does it really make any difference at what stage of the season you have your GP?

The Adelaide GP has had the luck of being the last GP of the season for its entire life. Have a listen to Murray Walker and I'll bet that he'll mention Adelaide or the Australian GP in his commentary at least once in every two GPs. It'll usually be something along the lines of "... at the season finale in Adelaide, Australia." How many other GPs get a plug like that? Not many.

Will Melbourne get free plugs like that? I think not. And why not? Simply because Kennett wants the Australian GP to be at the start of the season, in March. There's not going to be any season-long build-up of hype and advertising leading to the climax of the season. Instead, there's just going to be the start of the season, and there we are in Melbourne.

The reason that they want the GP right at the start of the season is so that it doesn't clash with the finals of the local football competition. Make no mistake, Australian Rules Football rules - no pun intended - in Victoria. I remember seeing a Melbourne newspaper poster that was screaming about a footballer being suspended for 3 weeks ... and then, in a much smaller type, down in a corner, was the announcement that the Pope had died. Honest!

The point I'm trying to make here is about the positioning of a GP in the season's calendar. It seems to me that Melbourne might well miss out quite badly in comparison to Adelaide, simply by requesting (and, rumour has it, getting) first spot on the calendar.

Of course that then leads into a bigger question: does a GP bestow greater health, wealth and posterity on its host, and is all the expense, time and trouble that the local citizenry have to go through worth it?

Well, it must be! Have a look at the list of cities we are told are queuing up to host a GP. And look at the impressive stats that the Adelaide people roll out to prove what "value-added" the GP brought to that city. The Adelaide people will tell you that the GP brings millions of dollars into the city directly and - here's the important bit - indirectly, through the heightened exposure that the city gets.

But the real test lies with you. That's right, you!

Now then, we have to do a little survey here. Us F1 fans all know about Adelaide. But ask the people at work, your friends, the other kids at school: do they know where Adelaide is? I'll bet VERY few of them do.

So did hosting the GP really bring Adelaide increased "exposure"? Well, perhaps the GP may have added a bit of glamour to an otherwise pretty boring, staid city (incidentally, before you start sending me petrol-bombs, I lived in Adelaide for 4 years and it is still by far my Australian city of choice), but really it did nothing.

The citizens of the world know little, if anything, about Adelaide or even Australia. ("Australia? Oh, yeah! That's that little country next door to Switzerland, isn't it?")

And the lasting effect? Equally minor. Can you honestly say that you would want to visit Adelaide now? What has the city got that you want to see? Nothing.

Despite all the hoop-la that the media generates about the F1 circus, the focus of the world isn't on the hosts of the actual races. It's on the races and the participants. Watch the TV coverage of any GP. How much do you see of the surrounding area?

Basically - be honest here - do you really care where the races are held? If, and it's a big if, we could pick up the entire circuit and its surrounds at, say Monza, and put it down in the middle of a desert, would you really notice from the TV coverage?

I think not. (Of course, it's nowhere as simplistic as that, but I think you get the idea.) Like me, all you are really interested in is the actual racing itself. And that's a pity, because some of the GP circuits are in magnificent surroundings.

So, heading back to the original argument, it would seem that hosting a GP is not really worth the hassle. It costs a lot of money, it disrupts the local people, and it gets the host city no realistic, long-term benefit.

In that case, you should try and get the maximum possible benefit out of a bad situation. I would have thought that the best possible answer to that would have been to have the last GP of the season, and then you'll get all the commentators giving your GP free plugs quite often, plus your city would become known as the place where the end of season race is held.

F1 tries to put over that is terribly grand, and is always dashing off to exotic places like Rio de Janeiro, Acapulco and Marrakesh (the truth isn't like that), so we have an alternative whereby the host circuit, at the beginning of the season, could be in an exotic locale. I don't think even the most ardent of Melbourne's fans could say that the city even comes close to be "exotic".

So, has Kennett stuffed it?

I think he has. Most of us probably think little of the positioning of a GP in the calendar, but I'd reckon that the people who are going to host the last GP each season from now on must be rubbing their hands with great glee - if they can get that position on a regular basis.

But that's just me.