Timo Glock has named the Formula 1 circuit that he believes ‘would love’ to host another Grand Prix on the calendar.
The popularity of F1 in Germany has declined massively in the last decade, despite its hand in motorsport being deep-rooted with automobile brands including Mercedes, Porsche, BMW and Audi hailing from the country.
Germany has also produced some of F1’s most prolific drivers, including world champions Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, and Nico Rosberg.
Schumacher won more races than any other driver at Hockenheim, taking four victories at the German circuit in 1995, 2002, 2004 and 2006.
Despite this history, there has not been a German Grand Prix since the 2019 season. Former F1 driver Glock thinks it could return to the calendar with the right amount of investment when speaking to the Formula for Success podcast.
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Hopes for Hockenheim return
The last time Germany hosted an F1 race was in 2020 when, during the COVID-affected year, F1 ran the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. German driver Nico Hulkenberg made a comeback to replace Lance Stroll, who was out with COVID-19, and finished a respectable eighth place.
In the 2011 season, there were seven German drivers on the grid. Now Hulkenberg is the only German driver in the field, with no strong prospects rising through the ranks of any F1 academies.
Mick Schumacher has been linked with a potential seat at Alpine for 2025, but he’s seen as a longshot after his two years at Haas.
His father Michael was a huge fan of the Hockenheimring and his four Formula 1 victories at the track was more than any other driver managed during its time on the calendar.
Timo Glock says Hockenheim ‘would love’ to host F1 races again
Hockenheim’s presence on the calendar has been sporadic over the years, with it absent from the calendar in 2015 and 2017 at the height of Mercedes’ dominance.
The German manufacturer offered to help pay for promotion and to cover any potential losses it might incur for the 2015 season, according to Reuters. With low attendance to the 2014 race, organisers were unwilling to risk further losses that would have occurred through little time to sell tickets.
Since Liberty Media took over the commercial rights of F1 in 2017, there has been a boom in the interest to host Grands Prix globally. Glock believes Hockenheim, which last hosted the race in 2019, could make a return if there is enough interest from financial backers.
“For me, it’s just the political situation at the moment in Germany, that the [car] manufacturers don’t want to be part of motorsport any more because the carbon footprint is a big part of it and it’s the political situation that the government does not support any F1 races anymore,” said Glock.
“I have very close contact to Hockenheim and they would love to do an F1 race again. They need to find the financial support and, unfortunately, we don’t have the support in Germany at the moment from the manufacturer side and from the government.”
According to Hockenheim’s managing director, Jorn Teske, private investors have bought around 75% of Hockenheim with the buyers including “five medium-sized companies” that have a planned investment of £211 million into the site over the “next five to 10” years. The entry of Audi to the grid in 2026 has also been mooted as one of the reasons it could return to the calendar.
Glock added: “We have great facilities to do it. Now Hockenheim is sold to a private company and they want to invest a lot of money, fill it up again, and make it more attractive. We need the financial background in Germany and support to host an F1 race.
“If I look back to my time, how much support I had in Germany as a young guy, now the young German kids don’t have any support in Germany to make their way through to F1 – it’s impossible at the moment.”
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