Bernie Ecclestone can still spot a hole in a calendar from a mile away. And for the former F1 boss, the absence of a German Grand Prix remains the most baffling omission of all.
“It’s strange it’s not being made possible,” he told sport.de, putting it down to the most predictable culprit in modern F1: money. In his view, if the funding lined up, “no one would oppose it.”
The German GP was once a backbone of the championship. First run in 1926 and, in peacetime, seldom missing, it built its legend at the Nürburgring’s fearsome Nordschleife before alternating with Hockenheim in more recent decades. Yet the last race officially titled the German Grand Prix was in 2019. The pandemic reshuffle that followed didn’t rescue it, and the event quietly fell off the tour as Formula 1’s global map stretched to 24 rounds and new markets with deeper pockets. Per the 2025 calendar, there’s still no stop in Germany.
Stefano Domenicali isn’t blind to the gap. The F1 CEO has been careful to keep the door ajar, saying earlier this year he’d like Germany back and that, initially, the sanctioning fee wouldn’t be the hill to die on. Talks, though, require a counterparty. “We know who we need to talk to. We’re open,” he said, while also warning time isn’t on anyone’s side. There’s a queue—an unusually powerful one—of governments and promoters with chequebooks ready. Portugal, Thailand, South Korea, South Africa, Rwanda, Indonesia, Argentina: all name-checked, all interested.
That’s the modern calculus. The sport’s most prized asset is its race slots, and it sells them dearly. If you can’t match the offer—on fee, on infrastructure, on political push—someone else usually can. It’s why new or revitalized venues with state backing have elbowed their way in. And it’s why, absent political will at home, historic European rounds can drift.
Germany’s situation is layered. Timo Glock summed up a key part of it on the Formula For Success podcast last year: the national mood music has cooled on motorsport, with the climate debate casting a long shadow and public funds no longer finding their way to F1. When manufacturers and government step back in a country where they usually do the heavy lifting, the numbers get ugly for race promoters very fast.
Which brings us back to Ecclestone. He’s right that “it’s just about money” in the sense that, without a funding solution, the conversation ends before it begins. But it’s also about who’s willing to spend it, and on what timeline. Germany has arenas that work—Hockenheim and the Nürburgring know how to run a Grand Prix—but not a clear business case that offsets the current political cost. F1, meanwhile, can fill its calendar elsewhere without compromising the balance sheet.
There is a path, if someone wants to walk it. Domenicali’s “secondary for the time being” line on fees was as close to an olive branch as you’ll hear from Liberty-era F1. It’s exactly the sort of flexibility heritage events say they want. But even with friendlier terms, Germany would still need a coalition: a promoter with courage, a manufacturer or two willing to stand up publicly, maybe a regional government ready to frame the race as technology and tourism, not tire smoke.
What it probably won’t get is a slow dance. The 2025 schedule is full, and the waiting list is political as much as sporting. Countries aren’t just pitching circuits; they’re pitching nation-branding projects. That’s hard to beat with nostalgia.
Still, you don’t erase a century of history with a few quiet years. Germany remains one of F1’s great heartlands; its fanbase hasn’t vanished. Ecclestone, never shy about telling the sport where it’s going wrong, senses the missed opportunity. He’s not alone.
Whether the German Grand Prix can make the numbers work again is another question entirely. The answer won’t be found in a press quote. It’ll come from a bank transfer—and the will to make it.
