What's Happening

Formula 1 comes to Korea

  • Date01/22/2009
  • Hit10966

After successfully hosting the 1988 Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and Asian
Games in 2002 and being shortlisted amongst the final three contenders for
the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, Korea continues its rise as a venue for
major international sporting events by hosting its first F1 Grand Prix in
2010.

The circuit on which the race will take place is currently under
construction and forms part of a major leisure resort being built at
Yeongam-am in the province of Jellanam on the south west tip of Korea,
approximately 31/2 hours by road from Seoul.

In addition to the motor racing circuit, the leisure complex will include
hotels, a water park, marina, casino, golf course, theme park, shopping
malls, watersports, and numerous restaurants, bars and nightclubs.

As would be expected of such a high tech country the new race circuit will
boast state of the art facilities, will have a 1.25km straight allowing
speeds of 320kmh and at 5.6 km will be the longest F1 circuit in Asia and
the second longest on the F1 calendar after Monza in Italy.

The date of the first Korean F1 Grand Prix has yet to be fixed but is
expected to be towards the end of the calendar, in September or October
2010.

Several tour operators have already expressed an interest in creating tours
incorporating the event, not only to Korea, but depending on timing, to also
include either the Chinese or Japanese races.