KUALA LUMPUR: There are no plans for Malaysia to hold Formula One (F1) races soon, says Hannah Yeoh.<\/p>\n
The Youth and Sports Minister said this was due to the high costs associated with it alongside an already packed motorsports calendar.<\/p>\n
Yeoh said several factors must be reviewed thoroughly before Malaysia can consider holding F1 races again.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrgaising F1 races requires the government to pay about RM300mil annually to Liberty Media, which holds the F1 commercial rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cMalaysia must also bind itself to a contract of between three to five years with the said company, amounting to a commitment of about RM1.5bil during this period,\u201d she said during Ministers’ Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday (Aug 21).<\/p>\n
She said the cost of ensuring the track is ready alongside organising the event itself will also have to be taken into consideration.<\/p>\n
To this, Yeoh said the RM300mil fee could instead be used to support other programmes under the ministry\u2019s purview.<\/p>\n
This includes the development programmes involving 363 podium athletes and 9,834 talent development athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would cost as much as RM124.1mil annually with the RM300mil being able to support the programme several times over,” she said.<\/p>\n
Acknowledging the prestige of F1 races, she said it is \u201cgood to have\u201d but noted the large funds needed for it and how it could be better used to support other sports.<\/p>\n
However, she said Malaysia is not closing the door when it comes to organising F1 races again, if there are corporate entities interested to pay the organising fee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose interested can connect with the Sepang International Circuit. We are open to this and can cooperate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
F1 races were first hosted in Malaysia in 1999, with the country being the first in the region to do so.<\/p>\n
Owing to the increasing organising fees annually and a decreased interest among fans, Malaysia stopped hosting the race on Sept 1, 2017.<\/p>\n
She was responding to Oscar Ling Chai Yew (PH-Sibu) who asked the minister to state whether Malaysia is in position to host F1 races again, and how the Sepang International Circuit maximises its utilisation to benefit the nation.<\/p>\n
Yeoh also said that the Sepang International Circuit is not a white elephant, noting how various programmes are still being held there.<\/p>\n
This includes recreational activities alongside the organising of the Petronas Grand Prix races.<\/p>\n
The race, she said, attracted about 185,000 spectators last year, generating some RM329mil and creating 4,493 job opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR: There are no plans for Malaysia to hold Formula One (F1) races soon, says Hannah Yeoh.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,12862,50774,578,576,577,50772,12716,3426,82,50773],"class_list":["post-85352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dewan-rakyat","tag-expensive","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-hannah-yeoh","tag-motorsports","tag-parliament","tag-sports","tag-youth-and-sports-ministry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}