Donington Gilette interview on iplayer

[williamp]

For those of you who dont live in the east midlands, last night they did a programme on Donington, and interviewed Simon Gilette.

Its here if anyones interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wp021/Insi...

[Martin Keene]

Careful. I mentioned this last night, I also mentioned his 27 points on his licence, and it got deleted under name and shame rules.

[FasterFreddy]

Can't see how any of that could be construed as naming and shaming. It's all factual and in the public domain.

Gillett has BS'd his way through life and seems to think he can continue doing it. One day, it will all catch up with him.

[andygo]

I can't listen to iplayer at work, but what was the gist of the interview?

[Sixpackpert]

andygo said:

I can't listen to iplayer at work, but what was the gist of the interview?

I don't know, the moment his face appeared I put my foot through the Laptop, must be a reaction to rimjobs like him.

Now off to buy a new laptop.

[kbird]

andygo said:

I can't listen to iplayer at work, but what was the gist of the interview?

Not my fault!

[woof]

He said nothing of any interest. In fact he probably only talks for 60 seconds
Basically we tried - we failed. It's a nothing piece

[flemke]

woof said:

He said nothing of any interest. In fact he probably only talks for 60 seconds
Basically we tried - we failed. It's a nothing piece

Quite.
What I always found it hard to believe is that these people actually believed that this would be financially viable.
This whole thing was agreed and launched in July, '08. By that time, the entire world knew that we had entered a credit crunch, and that things could get very ugly.
The concept that, in even a decent economic environment, an event for motor racing fans, for the parking of whose cars the organiser boasted, "I will make it awkward and I will make it expensive", had half a chance of succeeding would be fanciful. To decide, after the international financial crisis had obviously begun, to do that was utterly moronic.

[jonnyleroux]

not wishing to defend Gillette in *any* way, but far more ludicrous and costly ventures have been completed in recent years - it's very easy for everyone to say in hindsight that it was clearly not viable - but nor are lots of projects that still reach the finishing line.

according to Wikipedia, the new circuit at Portimao cost €195M - that was completed in 2008.

the eurotunnel cost billions and didn't cover it's own costs for about 20 years IIRC.

one could argue that the ~£60M spent to build rockingham could have been more wisely invested turning Donington into an F1 venue.

the timing of the project was all wrong, and for that alone he should be ashamed of himself for plodding on as he did with careless abandon. i disagree that there was anything inherrently wrong with the plan though.

Jonny
BaT

ETA: had missed your bit about parking - clearly the guy was deranged on that score i'll give you that!

Edited by jonnyleroux on Tuesday 14th December 14:22

[FasterFreddy]

jonnyleroux said:

not wishing to defend Gillette in *any* way, but far more ludicrous and costly ventures have been completed in recent years - it's very easy for everyone to say in hindsight that it was clearly not viable - but nor are lots of projects that still reach the finishing line.

according to Wikipedia, the new circuit at Portimao cost €195M - that was completed in 2008.

the eurotunnel cost billions and didn't cover it's own costs for about 20 years IIRC.

one could argue that the ~£60M spent to build rockingham could have been more wisely invested turning Donington into an F1 venue.

the timing of the project was all wrong, and for that alone he should be ashamed of himself for plodding on as he did with careless abandon. i disagree that there was anything inherrently wrong with the plan though.

Jonny
BaT

Another big difference between Donington and other, similar large overseas projects is that often they are politically influenced decisions and have government money behind them.

[woof]

the only thing that was interesting that his original business partner (Motocross Grand Prix promoter Gareth Hockey) said the initial idea was to create a motorsport disneyland. F1 never featured in the concept.

Which actually sounds a pretty good idea !

[jonnyleroux]

FasterFreddy said:

Another big difference between Donington and other, similar large overseas projects is that often they are politically influenced decisions and have government money behind them.

Agreed. Ignorning the finances, I think the local council were/are pretty supportive of Donington though. Far more so than some of the other circuits councils anyway.

Jonny
BaT

[flemke]

jonnyleroux said:

not wishing to defend Gillette in *any* way, but far more ludicrous and costly ventures have been completed in recent years - it's very easy for everyone to say in hindsight that it was clearly not viable - but nor are lots of projects that still reach the finishing line.

according to Wikipedia, the new circuit at Portimao cost €195M - that was completed in 2008.

the eurotunnel cost billions and didn't cover it's own costs for about 20 years IIRC.

one could argue that the ~£60M spent to build rockingham could have been more wisely invested turning Donington into an F1 venue.

the timing of the project was all wrong, and for that alone he should be ashamed of himself for plodding on as he did with careless abandon. i disagree that there was anything inherrently wrong with the plan though.

Jonny
BaT

ETA: had missed your bit about parking - clearly the guy was deranged on that score i'll give you that!

Jonny,

I am not sure that defending an idiotic idea on the basis that there have been other equally idiotic ideas is hugely persuasive.
Certainly hindsight tends to be 20/20. It is a fact, however, that there were at least a few of us here, and no doubt many others elsewhere, who were saying within days of Gillett's announcement in July '08 that it was a bad idea, for numerous reasons that were apparent before he started being customer-hostile about the parking: Donington has got a very unfavourable local road system, the UK already had a circuit that was perfectly good for F1 in most ways and would not require the massive investment that Donington would require, the global recession was already upon us, so the poorly-funded Gillett was pi55ing into the wind when he imagined that he could borrow 100 big ones at affordable terms, and he had agreed to pay many millions more per annum to CVC than Silverstone could afford even though the latter did not suffer from Donington's disadvantages.
When these obvious points were made here by some of us, we were accused of being negativistic, anti-progress, elitist, et al. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that, from the start, this was a bloody bad idea.

[jonnyleroux]

flemke said:

I am not sure that defending an idiotic idea on the basis that there have been other equally idiotic ideas is hugely persuasive.

that's a fair comment!

i guess i just think it's a real shame that Donington couldn't get the GP. I was there in 1993 and the whole experience was significantly better than the Silverstone GP's of the same era. Current road system aside, it's a great location with ~10 of the UK's largest ~30 cities with an hour or so of the circuit. The roads could easily (if not cheaply) be sorted with a few CPO's (there's plenty of available land between the circuit, the A50 and the M1).

silverstone circuit is now so far detatched from the spectators that you may as well sit at Donington to watch the British GP anyway.

Jonny
BaT

[williamp]

I really believed (well, wanted) this to happen, but there were serious flaws. He didnt pay anyone for the work which was done, and when the whole idea collapsed people moved in to strip anything of value- even things like the steel doors from the conference centre (hangar...) were taken, presumably for their scrap value.

[skeggysteve]

Martin Keene said:

Careful. I mentioned this last night, I also mentioned his 27 points on his licence, and it got deleted under name and shame rules.

Why did it get deleted?
Name and shame rule - wtf - the infomation is in the public domain.

The guy is a chancer/crook - 27 points on his DL and still driving.

Overfinch Range Rover, private plate - the BBC thing said £14m owed. How do these people do it?

I like the idea of a GP at Donny, it's a far better circuit than Silverstone will ever be - I don't care about the pits, grandstands/media st, I like a circuit that the drivers can 'drive' on. Donny wins hands down vs Silverstone.

As to the BBC 'report' - yes, Gilette just said the old stuff, It wasn't my fault.

[Scuffers]

jonnyleroux said:

flemke said:

I am not sure that defending an idiotic idea on the basis that there have been other equally idiotic ideas is hugely persuasive.

that's a fair comment!

i guess i just think it's a real shame that Donington couldn't get the GP. I was there in 1993 and the whole experience was significantly better than the Silverstone GP's of the same era. Current road system aside, it's a great location with ~10 of the UK's largest ~30 cities with an hour or so of the circuit. The roads could easily (if not cheaply) be sorted with a few CPO's (there's plenty of available land between the circuit, the A50 and the M1).

silverstone circuit is now so far detatched from the spectators that you may as well sit at Donington to watch the British GP anyway.

Jonny
BaT

don's disagree but your letting an emotional want cloud the practicalities.

to host F1 at Donny would do a lot to turn it onto exactly what you don't like about Silverstone.

the issue here is that F1 is too far detached from motorsport as was/is, it's no longer a sport, but a financial pissing contest with cars.

Back to Gilette, even if the money had been forthcoming, it would never had made any money and would just just defaulted further down the line, the cash he agreed to pay Berni made it un-viable, this has been the whole argument with Silverstone for the last 20 years.

[onemorelap]

jonnyleroux said:

FasterFreddy said:

Another big difference between Donington and other, similar large overseas projects is that often they are politically influenced decisions and have government money behind them.

Agreed. Ignorning the finances, I think the local council were/are pretty supportive of Donington though. Far more so than some of the other circuits councils anyway.

Jonny
BaT

Agreed.

Following Gillets 15 minutes of Bernie orchestrated fame distastefully p@ssing on Silverstones 60th GP weekend the only snippet of good news was that planning was approved expediently (quite a juxta position compared to what Tom Wheatcroft had to endure in the 70's)

The rest of it was a diary of woes with a continual background noise of "how you going to pay for it then?".

The part i find particulalry sad is that Tom Wheatcroft passed on seeing his beloved circuit in a complete state of dis-repair and the good name of Donington effectively turned to dust.

We can only be thankful that Kevin Wheatcroft appears to have a similar level of passion for the circuit and it's future.