Tuesday March 22, 2005

Sepang make request to host next season’s opening race

BY LIM TEIK HUAT

SEPANG: The seventh edition of the Petronas Malaysian F1 Grand Prix was the best yet with a total of 106,322 spectators catching the race live at the Sepang F1 Circuit on Sunday.

And it can only get better next year.

The race organisers, Sepang International Circuit (SIC), have made a formal request to F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to stage the season-opening race of the 2006 World Championships for the first time.

Ecclestone has controlled the commercial side of F1 for more than 25 years. He made a rare appearance at the Malaysian GP last weekend and it gave the SIC the opportunity to made known to him their intention to be the opening act of the championships.

Melbourne have traditionally hosted the opening race of the season on the first week of March.

However, the Australians announced recently that they would not want to be the first on the calendar because it would run too close to the Melbourne Commonwealth Games scheduled for March 15-27. They requested to be the hosts for the third round.

The SIC general manager, Ahmad Mustafa, said that Ecclestone gave a “positive response” to their request.

“He did not made a firm commitment but we are optimistic that our request would be considered positively,” said Ahmad.

A draft of the calendar for next year is only expected to be out by the middle of the year and the opening leg is scheduled for March 3-5.

Malaysia first staged the F1 Grand Prix in 1999 and have enjoyed a good relationship with Ecclestone all these while. The Sepang F1 Circuit is currently the only venue allowed to incorporate the F1 logo to its name.

The inaugural race at Sepang was the penultimate round of the championships. The following year, it was the final round. It was the second round from 2001.

“Obviously, it will be a new ball game for us to organise the first race of the season.

“It will be a new challenge for us but I am confident that it will provide better rewards for us and Malaysia in general,” said Ahmad.

He added SIC introduced new elements for this year’s race, including the Malaysian GP Ice Gala, the charity auction to aid the tsunami victims and a post-race concert at the circuit.

“There were also plenty of side events organised in the city in cooperation with Kuala Lumpur City Hall and Tourism Malaysia,” said Ahmad.

“These significantly helped us to make the race this year more exciting. If we host the opening race next year, these events will be even more spectacular.”

The SIC attracted the biggest race day attendance on Sunday in seven years – a total of 106,332 spectators and more than 42,000 of them were foreigners. The first qualifying session on Saturday drew 46,508 spectators and 8,216 watched the free practice sessions on Friday.

Their previous highest attendance of 101,455 was recorded in 2003. Last year, the general elections clashed with race day and only 84,010 came to the circuit.

The fans to this year's race certainly got what they bargained for.

Fernando Alonso handed Renault their first-ever win in Malaysia and it was the second career GP win for the young Spaniard.

It was two out of two for Renault in the World Championships after Giancarlo Fisichella's triumph in Melbourne two weeks ago and it certainly underlined their status as the team to beat this season.

The race in Sepang this year will go down in history as the place where Toyota recorded their first-ever podium finish – through Italian Jarno Trulli.

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