KEY POINTS:
Valencia's place as the venue of the 2009 America's Cup has begun to look a little more shaky lately - and not just because Team New Zealand have been making a race of it on the water.
Alinghi boss Ernesto Bertarelli has found less to recommend Valencia -
his choice for its supposedly reliable winds - with the tricky breezes that have marked the first four races.
He said after race three that the cup should be won by the competitors' ability, not just by the wind - a sign of his dissatisfaction with the fickle breezes that have affected this regatta.
But the doubt over Valencia as an ongoing venue is also a fascinating battle involving money, politics and the commercial requirements of international sport.
The Spanish city, otherwise making a good fist of the 32nd America's Cup, has long been earmarked as the venue for the 33rd, if Alinghi retain the cup.
But added to the mix has been an agreement between Valencia and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone to run a new Grand Prix - called the European GP - from 2008 to 2015.
The street circuit would include roads running through part of the impressive Port America's Cup, with the two events combining to be a festival of major international sport with real pulling power.
However, of late, some cracks have started to appear in the Valencia-America's Cup-F1 triumvirate, according to senior America's Cup sources.
Bertarelli has decided that the 32nd America's Cup has gone so well that he would charge an increased fee to the Valencian authorities - from ¬90 million ($150 million) to ¬150 million ($250 million), a 66 per cent increase - for the 2009 event.
This has gone down like a rubber paella with the Valencian regional government, which paid the previous fee on top of a ¬1 billion redevelopment programme and is having to service loans to pay for it.
Now that F1 is on board, some observers are concluding that Valencia may choose to let Ecclestone's men continue to put them on the map, rather than pay more for the America's Cup in 2009.
That is particularly relevant as the F1 link will cost Valencia only ¬26 million a year - meaning a total of ¬52 million for the next two years compared to ¬150 million for the America's Cup.
Motor racing in Spain has gone through the roof since Fernando Alonso became world champion. Alonso himself has said that two years ago, Spain didn't even have F1 on TV. Now it has two Grands Prix.
The Barcelona GP is held every year and will remain on the F1 calendar, but the European GP will move to Valencia from Nurburgring, in Germany.
Originally, Bertarelli lauded Ecclestone as "one of the smartest men in sport" for hooking up with the America's Cup and its impressive port. However, F1's promoters are aggressive marketers and insist on "clean" venues (the same exercise that derailed New Zealand's co-hosting of the 2003 Rugby World Cup).
That would be an impossible clash for Bertarelli and the America's Cup, given its quest for ever more sponsors.
While this may appear an impasse, with enough indicators to suggest that Bertarelli might look elsewhere for his European base, these are early days in the negotiations and there are potential solutions.
For a start, the Valencia GP does not have to be a street circuit, as the city has a perfectly good F1-quality track - the Ricardo Tome circuit at Cheste, on the outskirts of the city.
However, both Ecclestone and Bertarelli will want to take commercial advantage of the high rollers who follow both sports - bringing, for example, superyacht owners and millions of euros in fees for berthing at the Port.
Ecclestone came under fire for interfering in Valencian politics when he said he would not sign the F1 contract until after the recent election - a statement that was seen by many as an endorsement of the candidacy of President Francisco Camps, of the Popular Party, who duly won the election.
So it may be, with Ecclestone in favour with the ruling party and undercutting Bertarelli on price, that the Swiss billionaire begins to look elsewhere for the 2009 regatta.
But, of course, Bertarelli first has to retain the cup.
