MELBOURNE: Organizers of this week's Australian Grand Prix Tuesday played down Bernie Ecclestone's decision to skip the race and instead travel to New York for talks with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Formula One supremo, who recently warned that the sport did not need Australia, is meeting Bloomberg about the possibility of an event on Staten Island, Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker said. But he stressed that nothing should be read into his absence from Melbourne. “That doesn't mean to say that he's lost interest ... it's about business in New York,” Walker told reporters. “Mayor Bloomberg's pretty keen to get a race at Staten Island.” Last year's Melbourne race posted its biggest loss in five years, costing taxpayers nearly US$50 million, which prompted Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to call for the event to be scrapped. In response, Ecclestone said: “If we have some new races, some others will fall out – we don't need Australia, for instance.”
