F1 News
"Terrible race" in France "anti-marketing for Formula 1"
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
Former Formula 1 driver Michael Bleekemolen has called for the Circuit Paul Ricard to be axed from the F1 calendar after what he described as a "terrible race" last weekend, as the Dutchman called it "anti-marketing for Formula 1".
The race saw Lewis Hamilton take the checkered flag after leading every single lap of the race, with a margin of over 15 seconds between himself and second-placed Valtteri Bottas.
Overtakes were also quite rare, with the bulk of them coming at the end of the DRS zone on the Mistral straight heading into the chicane that splits up the straight. Between that and the dominance of Hamilton, Bleekemolen didn't enjoy the race whatsoever, he exclusively told GPblog.com.
"It was a terrible race," the Dutchman said, who now owns touring car side Team Bleekemolen.
"This one really tops the charts of how bad it is. Anti-marketing for Formula 1. The odd thing is that cars were close to each other, but it didn't feel that way, it felt like nothing. It was terrible because of Hamilton, because he's that good. 15 seconds ahead of Bottas."
Would you be all for scrapping Paul Ricard in favour of a track like Zandvoort?
"Absolutely," he responded.
"I also understood not a lot of people came to see it. It's also worth mentioning that in France, it came to light that traffic was going to be chaos, which scares people off from coming. We have to be careful for that too here at Zandvoort, because we have this mentality of 'it has to be taken care of' while it's not as bad as people make it seem."