The CEO of the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) has admitted it was a mistake for Malaysia to stop hosting F1 races.<\/p>\n
The Asian track made its first appearance on the schedule as a world championship race in 1999 and quickly became a hit due to its layout and the unpredictable weather that surrounded the event.<\/p>\n
However, following the conclusion of the 2017 event, F1 has not returned to the Sepang track.<\/p>\n
With the sport undergoing a significant boost in popularity since its exit, the circuit’s CEO Azhan Shafriman Hanif has asserted it was a wrong choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past,\u201d he told the New Straits Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe let F1 go and now it is very hard to get it back. I hope we don\u2019t make the same mistake with MotoGP.\u201d<\/p>\n
SIC is currently looking at bringing its race back to the schedule, however it is wary of the high costs involved as well as competing with other interested nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a waiting list to get back in and of course, the costs are very expensive. We were quoted $70 million race fees. That is for each event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat does not include our setup costs which are in the region of RM10 to RM20m ($2.3m to $4.7m) for each event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn total, it would cost us more than RM300m ($71m) to bring back the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people are queuing so it won\u2019t be easy. But if we are really serious about it, then maybe we can start the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The track has already received the approval of the Malaysian government to pursue a return to the calendar.<\/p>\n
“It is not just SIC that wants Formula One. Many other stakeholders from both the government as well as the corporate sector also want it back,” said Shafriman.<\/p>\n
“We have to look at how Singapore is hosting it. They have everyone on board in making it a success, from the ministries to the corporate sector to the hotels. Everybody contributes.<\/p>\n
“It has to be like that if we bring it back here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CEO of the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) has admitted it was a mistake for Malaysia to stop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-78384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}