The Chinese authorities have announced, through Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai city’s sports administration, that they are encountering some problems at the moment. The organization of the Chinese Grand Prix of F1 is under analysis and may be at risk beyond 2010.<\/p>\n
\u00ab We will proceed with an evaluation. By next year, we should be able to give you an answer, \u00bb Qiu Weichang said Thursday evening to AFP.<\/p>\n
The first Chinese Grand Prix dates back to 2004, and the cost for the city of Shanghai was $240 million (around \u20ac200 million) to bring the Formula 1 circus. However, the event was not as popular as the city had hoped, and the return on investment was unsatisfactory. The loss of the Sinopec sponsor for the 2009 GP doesn’t help.<\/p>\n
\u00ab We want everyone to be a winner, us and Bernie (Ecclestone) as well as the F1 organizers, with whom Shanghai is under contract (until 2010), \u00bb stated the deputy director.<\/p>\n
\u00ab If it’s a goal that we can achieve, we will consider it… \u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00ab We would like at least to break even, but that will depend on two factors. One, the result related to the evaluation of previous and future races, the other, our ability to create a win-win situation, \u00bb he repeated.<\/p>\n
Why not organize a night Grand Prix, which was a huge success in Singapore? Qiu simply doesn’t think they have the right criteria: \u00ab In Singapore, organizing such an event at night was a good way to attract tourists to a small country. But I think Singapore is Singapore with its specificity, and we have ours, \u00bb he estimated.<\/p>\n
The Asian continent is meeting with great success among the authorities of the F1 World Championship. After Shanghai, Bahrain, Sepang, and Singapore, South Korea is set to host its first Grand Prix in 2010, and India in 2011, but could they become victims of their own success?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chinese authorities have announced, through Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai city’s sports administration, that they are encountering some problems at the moment. The organization of the Chinese Grand Prix of F1 is under analysis and may be at risk beyond 2010. \u00ab We will proceed with an evaluation. By next year, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":43412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-25540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-circuits"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n