Grand Prix boss Martin Pakula and his impossible F1 task

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It’s a busy week for Martin Pakula, chair of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, making sure all the Formula 1 teams arrived at the track despite the war in the Middle East.

The last thing you need is asbestos turning up in F1 pit facilities and blowing out the cost of the rebuild to $395 million.

Australian Grand Prix Corporation chair Martin Pakula on stage alongside Victorian Chamber chief executive Sally Curtain.

“Well, you’d prefer not to find asbestos, so when that became known that did not please me,” Pakula said in quite the understatement at the Victorian Chamber of Commerce’s Grand Prix breakfast on Thursday.

“Look in the olden days, you could probably avoid the exceptional additional cost of removing asbestos by just burying it and leaving it there, which is apparently what happened in 1994 when the original pit building was built.

“I can tell you, the asbestos didn’t appear between then and now. It’s probably been in the ground there for decades.”

The breakfast hosted by Victorian Chamber chief executive Sally Curtain featured croissant queen Kate Reid interviewing Oscar Piastri’s mum Nicole Piastri.

The event was attended by former governor Linda Dessau, City of Melbourne councillors Gladys Liu and Rafael Camillo along with James Teodorini, the newly appointed head of event sponsor AirWallex’s Australian and New Zealand operations.

To add to Pakula’s workload for the week he was asked as the chair of Crown to find a last-minute room for a “late breaking visitor”, only to find Crown’s hotel rooms were 98 per cent full.

“Was it Kim Kardashian?” Curtain asked cheekily, referring to Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton’s rumoured new squeeze.

“If Kim’s here, I don’t know about it, but the rumours abound,” Pakula said.

Will she, won’t she? “Rumours abound” on whether Kim Kardashian will appear at the Grand Prix in Melbourne. Bloomberg

Early morning breakfasters were pleased to hear that Pakula has no intention of the Grand Prix turning into a night event.

“I’m a day race guy,” he said.

“I think the way that Albert Park shows Melbourne off with the drone footage, with the helicopter footage during the day, is absolutely magnificent. I think we get our greatest benefit from displaying our city in all its glory as a day race.”

Pakula said the conversation had also changed around TV broadcast times.

“Once upon a time when it was all about what time you broadcast into Europe, there was more appetite for it,” he said.

“But now everyone’s growing into Asia, growing into the USA, the time of day that we have the race actually works pretty well in some of those TV markets.”

Vizard celebrates 70 years with 50 friends

Author, playwright, philanthropist, academic and former Gold Logie winner Steve Vizard will mark a major milestone next week with a gathering at Melbourne University.

Vizard hits 70 on Friday and early next week will be joined by 50 friends at University House to celebrate him becoming a septuagenarian.

Steve Vizard, pictured in 2021, will celebrate his 70th with a small function at University House.Eddie Jim

While Vizard is a professor at Monash and Adelaide universities, he is also involved with Melbourne University. Back in the day Vizard studied arts and law at the University of Melbourne.

“It is a very quiet affair. The principal consideration in choosing the venue was that it had an excellent wine list and rooms full of couches because, frankly, half of the guests can barely walk,” Vizard quipped.

While it is an intimate gathering, in PR parlance it is a “good list”.

Guests attending include comedian/actor Glenn Robbins, actor Mark Mitchell, Mr Melbourne Eddie McGuire, 3AW host Russel Howcroft, Ian McFadyen, Michael Nettlefold, John Rothfield (aka Dr Turf), media identity Michael Roberts, Bates Smart’s Jeff Copolov, Marshall White’s Jack Bongiorno, composer Joe Chindamo, Profile Talent managing director Mark Klemens, and writer, producer and Vizard’s former partner in the Artists Services production company, Andrew Knight.

Karl Stefanovic hold talks over possible FM radio move

The spectacular implosion of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson this week has ignited a frenzy of industry speculation about what the radio company will do next as it wrestles with the prospect of life without Sandilands in the event he is unable to make up with his professional partner of nearly three decades.

Enter Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic, whose contract with Nine Entertainment, publisher of this masthead, is reportedly due to expire at the end of this year. ARN Media, which owns the KIIS network, has recently held informal talks with Stefanovic’s camp over a possible move to poach him from next year, according to two sources familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Stefanovic attend the 63rd TV WEEK Logie Awards in 2023.Hanna Lassen/Getty Images

As things stand, we hear the discussions have not resulted in any agreement or deal, and are not guaranteed to result in a move. It should be noted that media companies hold discussions of this nature with prospective talent all the time. Still, the contact itself, which we hear was initiated before the Kyle and Jackie O on-air bust-up, certainly piqued our interest.

ARN Media and Nine declined to comment. Stefanovic didn’t respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Word of the talks came across our desk amid mounting industry intrigue over Stefanovic’s future at Nine, which was given renewed prominence after Henderson walked from ARN’s marquee show, just one year into an eye-watering 10-year, $200 million contract for the duo.

Stefanovic’s future has been the subject of ongoing industry gossip for months. But the chatter was sent into overdrive when he was given the go-ahead by Nine to strike out and launch his own podcast, The Karl Stefanovic Show, independent of the company.

Grand Prix boss Martin Pakula and his impossible F1 task

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