New Jersey F1 race postponed

Next year's inaugural Grand Prix of America in New Jersey will be postponed to 2014 because local organisers need more time to prepare, race organisers said on Friday.

"They've run out of time," Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told ‘Reuters’. "There's all sorts of things...and they didn't quite think it all through. They've had a wake-up call but the wake-up call came too late.

"The couldn't get everything ready in time," added the 81-year-old. "That's the bottom line."  Organisers said the plan now was for a race in 2014, when the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi is also due to make its debut on the calendar after that year's Winter Olympics there.

The waterfront Grand Prix of America, with the New York skyline as a backdrop, had been pencilled in for June 16 next year with an asterisk against it.

It would have followed a weekend after the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal as a North American double-header.

Ecclestone had raised doubts about the Jersey race in September when he said organisers had not complied with the terms and conditions of the contract, which he added had subsequently lapsed.

Organisers issued a statement saying construction issues included needing additional time for the devel­op­ment of facilities along the Hudson Riverfront and for finishing the second pits and paddock garage on the site. "We are going to be racing at Port Imperial, unfortunately just not as soon as we hoped and expected," said an official.