Formula one races into Shanghai for the first time this week, and drivers and teams alike are relishing the challenge of a country rapidly establishing itself as a sought-after sporting venue.
For world champion Michael Schumacher, it is a maiden visit to China and he plans to make the most of the opportunity.
”Certainly I’m looking forward to it,” he said. ”I think we all are — to experience a new country too.”
For China, it is the latest step in its quest to bring top sports events to its shores, having already secured high-profile golf, tennis and football tournaments as well as the cherry on the cake, the Olympics in 2008.
With a first-ever motorcycle grand prix scheduled for May next year in Shanghai and the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Beijing, China is becoming the new sporting hotspot.
Shanghai won a seven-year contract to host formula one in 2002 and has thrown buckets of money into cementing it as a permanent fixture in a country seen as a vast untapped market for the sport’s wealthy sponsors.
The cost of transforming a swampy wasteland on the western outskirts of the eastern metropolis into a state-of-the-art racetrack has amounted to about $240-million.
Organisers are confident that they’ve got it right and the race next Sunday will prove a huge success, despite Schumacher having already secured the world title and Ferrari’s dominance, winning 13 grands prix so far this year.
”The inaugural Chinese Grand Prix will be a very exciting, safe and accomplished gala for motor sport fans,” said the circuit’s general manager, Mao Xiaohan. ”I’m sure the trip to Shanghai will be unforgettable and exciting.”
It isn’t just the infrastructure that needed to be put in place. China has had to train 900 volunteer marshals for the event.
With no previous experience, they have been drilled on how to deal with a crash, fire-fighting and even racing terminology.
Designed by renowned German Hermann Tilke, the circuit, loosely mirroring the Chinese character ”shang”, meaning upwards, can hold 200 000 spectators, including more than 29 000 in the grandstand opposite the pits.
BAR-Honda driver Jenson Button, who tested a car on the track earlier this year, described the infrastructure as ”staggering” and said the track will be ”physically challenging”.
”It should be a good race. It looks like overtaking should be possible,” he said.
The track features five punishing left-hand corners and five right, as well as a massive straight spanning 1 175m, linking turns 13 and 14.
”It was designed with overtaking in mind,” Tilke told Chinese media.
”And we’ve included slow corners as well as fast corners, which will make it much more difficult for the teams to decide on a strategy.”
Drivers are expected to push their cars to 320kph during 56 laps of the 5,45km track.
Ferrari supremo Jean Todt described Shanghai’s achievement as ”unbelievable”.
”I’ve been in Shanghai for the opening of the circuit … and it’s unbelievable what they’ve done, just unique what they’ve done,” he told Pitpass.com.
Although China has no car-racing tradition to speak of and ticket prices amount to a month’s wages for an average person, the event has sparked huge interest and organisers expect a full house.
Spectators can look forward to the return to racing of Ralf Schumacher who has been out since fracturing two vertebrae when he crashed his Williams in the United States Grand Prix on June 20.
”No one knows the Shanghai circuit, which makes this race very exciting,” said Schumacher.
There will also be a new face at Renault after the French outfit parted company with Italian driver Jarno Trulli. Canada’s 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve is taking his place.
Renault are fighting it out with BAR for second best this year, with just three points separating the two teams.
China was close to securing a formula-one race in the 1990s, spending nine years developing a track in the southern city of Zhuhai only for it to be dropped after allegedly failing to meet international standards. — Sapa-AFP