Lewis Moves to Monaco

[cosworth151]

I heard this on BBC World Service this morning. (about the only broadcast source for F1 news over here). Lewis Hamilton is getting a £10million apartment in Monaco.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7068001.stm

Guess that makes him a real F1 driver!

[Alianora La Canta]

I thought he was moving to Switzerland, according to the BBC in Britain? Would the news outlets please make their minds up?

[cosworth151]

Oops! Only one of the links made it on that post. Here's the other:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=486189&in_page_id=1773

As my daughter would say, "My bad!"

[CrazyHorse]

switzerland isnt it, apparently to escape the fans and the media

i can understand the media, but where does the money come from to pay his wages? Last time i buy a lewis hamilton cap

[Wizzo]

Does Switzerland recognise motor sport drivers yet?

The last I heard was they did not, so officially Hamilton would be unemployed and therefore pay no tax!

[cosworth151]

I think that was part of a failed attempt earlier this year to legalize auto racing in Switzerland. When the law to legalize racing was rejected, recognizing race driving went with it. I think the Swiss ban on motorsport goes back to the horrible LeMans crash of 1955.

[CrazyHorse]

i was watching a top gear the other night on cable where they went to the swiss alps looking for the best road in the world to drive, they soon turned round and went to italy  and found it   

i spent new year in geneva, saw a lot of high perfomance cars there, so maybe the swiss being anti car is a myth rather than reality, i dunno. Its a beautiful city anyway.

[Steven Roy]

I spent a couple of months working in Switzerland and one day we drove 300 miles to Geneva and back.  The fountain was closed for maintenance so all we saw was 18 inches of pipe sticking out of the lake.  Not very spectacular.

Switerland used to put on some of the most importatnt motor sports events in Europe before the ban.  I think the ban was introduced in 1958 but it was Pierre Levegh's accident at LeMans that triggered it.

[CrazyHorse]

the fountain is a bit spectacular, gets rather chilly there as well in January


if u click on f1box's profile u can go to his web site, hes got lots of post cards /poster things from the swiss GPs from many moons ago

[Scott]

That pic was from a few years ago with a really unusual storm - generally you don't need much more than a rain jacket in Geneva.

I don't always get that racing is banned in Switzerland since they hold a rally every year in our province, on some of the most dangerous roads.  To have a motorsports ban and then hold a super-dangerous rally is a bit strange, but officially, it is banned. 

At least Michael is ok, since he's really unemployed now.

http://www.riv.ch/

[SennaMan]

no taxes on income in Monaco mate and it is pretty central to most tracks

next we will hear he has his own private jet.