The Save Albert Park group continues to expose the rank stupidity, secrecy and the outright lies used to justify the presence of the Grand Prix.

Their latest analysis – Victoria’s hidden story: F1 GP races to another record loss- comes at a time when the Government claims to be reducing debt but continues to pile it on with the cost of the Grand Prix.

The Save Albert Park’s latest analysis shows how ridiculous the claims about the race’s benefits have become. Nevertheless, the Government is obviously aware enough of the problem that the Allan Government resorted to the classic dump the garbage tactic governments use – slipping out the Australian Grand Prix Corporation’s annual report on the second last sitting day of parliament. It obviously either hoped to avoid scrutiny – and backlash – of yet another record AGPC multi-million dollar loss for both events it manages.

The record losses are accumulating and not helping to reduce State debt contradicting  the claim when the GP was ‘won’ by then Premier Jeff Kennett on a promise it would not cost taxpayers a cent. Now it is estimated that a total of $3 billion in losses will be on Victoria’s record debt when the contract ends in 2037.

Needless to say this debt problem is one of the very, very few debt problems both the Opposition and Government don’t talk endlessly about.

The Save Albert Park’s Peter Logan said: “A record $102.313m loss for the grand prix, the near record loss of $26.626m for the MotoGP, a record pay rise of $120,000 for the CEO’s salary (of more than $800,000) was kept hidden for nine months. Meanwhile, government is trying to justify the sacking of 1,000 public sector jobs to help reduce State debt. The Allan government’s priorities are up sh*t creek.”

“The grand prix loss could have paid for a much needed ICU upgrade at St V’s or The Alfred. Both ICUs need around $100 million each for refurbishment. That’s less than one F1 GP for each of them,” he said.

Save Albert Park has also  analysed recent Grand Prix Annual Reports and found that: the Grand prix loss was$102.330m, up from $102.313m last year; and the MotoGP loss of $26.626m, was up from $26.094m last year. The total of the losses is therefore $128.956 million, not counting other subsidies such as government contributions for capital costs.

Needless to say, the CEO had won a record pay for running a major loss- making entity. https://www.grandprix.com.au/uploads/images/AGPC-2025-Annual-Report-FINAL.pdf

On top of these transparent losses there are various other subsidies. The Department of Treasury and Finance paid $1.85 million for the ‘free’ trams, through Department of Transport and Planning. The AGPC has other unexplained subsidies, such as ‘interest revenue’ of $3.620 million and some millions more in a hedge fund reserves mentioned on several pages but never explained.

The ‘recurrent engineering’ for the F1 GP went up from $61.701m to $74.952m, so the temporary circuit is becoming increasingly expensive to set up and pull down.

Revenue from the new taxpayer-funded $350m pit building expansion will now go exclusively to F1 – rather than to the AGPC – so future income will be less than the reduction in recurrent engineering; a ‘lose/lose’ contract change for Victoria’s finances!

As usual from the day the first Grand Prix was held the ‘attendance’ was ‘estimated’ to be 465,498 but, as has been established in FOIs, the spectator attendance is 100,000 fewer than that.

Moreover, a recent VCAT hearing the AGPC’s counsel said Save Albert Park is free to tell the public that 67,000 are repeat attendances by staff over the 4 days and a further 40,000 free tickets are printed but not actually recorded as attending.

You wouldn’t run a business like this – let alone a government.