Sepang International Circuit to undergo upgrades – Circuit boss wants to spend RM60mil on upgrades and improvements

it should be 4 years ago....better late then never!!

at least do it after July !@$R%$^@$!

At lastttttttt

ya ya ya after the 'upgrades' track day fee will jump to RM500 per session

Looks like it was never really maintained to begin with.
Why spend RM60 million blindly? Bet they'll go straight to the Ministry to get tax payers' money.

built 1999... 11 years flew by.

The roof membrane was WHITE

what bernie mean by 'shabby'?

as far as racing is concern, the track looks very good. even yash marina / monza look no better.

Makes you wonder doesn't it? If Bernie and co kept silent would SIC continue to run the circuit till it fell apart?

Weren't scheduled upgrades etc factored in when the track was first conceptualized or are we always destined to perpetually do things half way?

Did the need to upgrade the circuit come as a bizarre and unexpected surprise?

Read this NST article written last weekend. Good read as it spells out the unfortunate way we prioritize things in this country.

http://www.nst.com.my/articles/k2edvwe/Article/index_html

"Only problem is, we can't help but notice that the amount of money flowing into world class endeavours is not even close to being matched by funds flowing into developing motorsport infrastructure in the country."

well, from what i know, we got quite a number of drivers, driving for age level competition. and most of them are good, if not very good. that al jefri chap is one. so does aaron-something. and 2-3 others.

the fact that matter is, elevation to the highest pinnacle of motorsport driving needs more than good on track skills. its been our Achilles heel for quite a number of sport in malaysia. footballing for example, we conquered the 16, 19 ,21 age level competitions in Asean and posed great challenged in Asian level. so does diving, badminton, rallying, etc etc.

could it be mental block? or financial issue?

if we take notice our involvement in F1 has just entered 15th or 16th year (since petronas kicked in supporting sauber)actually we are quite young.

in the case of Karun Chandhok, many werent realized that he was unofficially brought to F1 by a certain vijay mallya, who happened to be a friend of karun's family.

karun's achievement in driving has never been that impressive, atleast not as much as the nst author are recommending. he did very well in the first 2-3 years in the new millenia; championing Formula Maruti, F2000, and british F3 competitions. but then after that things gone downhill. he was a formula renault champion in 2006, which is the only great achievement of his in these 5-6 years before he get hispania seat.

in the meantime, fairuz started in 2005 driving GP2. finishing 25th, he then went not that great until he raced for SuperNova, of which he finished 4th.and last year he positioned 2nd racing Renault 3.5. fairuz is not racing as much as karun did, but his achievement is much better than karun's.

well, both are there for a reason which not related to racing at all. but good for them that chances open up for them at good juncture. but then need to prove themselves once they are in there. there are other great guys doing GP2 of many of them won many races and been there conquering the scene for many seasons. the reasons they are stuck there are beyond me, but the point is, neither karun and fairuz are that competitive and solid financially to (independently) earn a seat in F1.

but in karun's case that is a bit different. i suspect he got that hispania racing is because of vijay. good for him that he got contacts in f1.

Track day increase from RM150 to RM200 and from RM200 to RM300 . After upgrade will be charging RM600 . Why Bernie Ecclestone never complaints Silverstone, SPA , Brazil circuit ??? I agree on new hospitality suites , but it would not cost you Rm60 mil.

If they gonna used the tax payer $$, can they at least open the book & see how they spend the 60m on SIC up keep.

If the 60m are approved it should also go to driver development programme to train young and uprising talent for future race driver, this is the real use of the budget as it benefit everyone especially the taxpayer money because its gives normal people(uprising passionate and talented driver) a chance to be notice and support by the goverment. and it will not just benefit those with money.

typo error on PM's name. :)

ayz, good spot!

60 million is a lot... hope they spend it wisely so that it'll become the best of the best...

drM,

I will disagree with your first sentence. We do not have enough drivers, let alone 'good' ones. I'm talking single seater drivers who aspire to get into F1. The numbers are lacking, especially higher up the ladder.

Nabil Jeffri is just beginning his journey into single seaters. Whether he is 'good' or not still remains to be seen.

When you mentioned Aaron you are probably referring to Aaron Lim, who was our 'rookie' driver in A1GP. Aaron is a classic example of a driver who showed some potential in single seaters but simply didn't have the funds to see his career through. He comes from a middle income family. And we've tried to help him out.

Much to our own A1GP priorities and budget limitations we put him in a FV6 car in 2007 for one race in Sentul, Indonesia which he WON on his debut and the rest of Malaysia just didn't seem to care despite us gathering the press to help him get noticed.

The rookie sessions in A1GP wasn't enough for him as he needed full championship seasons relevant to his experience level for him to progress his career. A1GP was actually too high for him so we were not able to put him in as a main driver but we gave him Friday rookie sessions for every race.

When we ran the team, there were only 3 Malaysian drivers with the pre-requisite International B Racing license.

There is a lot of interest now at the karting level but there is still a large gap if we talk about experience, between Alex/Fairuz and say Nabil who is just entering junior single seaters. Honestly the only F1 hopeful now, if you ignore Fairuz, is Jazeman, who is busy racing in British F3 this year. The handful of other drivers dotting in between are not good enough for the real thing. The real litmus test is Europe not Asia. You have to prove yourself in Europe and thats what Jazeman is doing. Despite shining in Asia, he is finding Europe VERY tough and we say, "welcome to the real world". He is a good kid and I do hope we see him enter F1 in 3-4 years time.

The 'we are quite young' in motorsport argument is not acceptable. For a nation that has hosted F1 for 11 years, the lack of decent drivers in their late teens and poised just behind F1 (F3, WSbR, GP2) is severely lacking. India and China are much newer to F1 and they already have drivers (note the 's') in or past F1 or testing for F1 teams, poised to jump in. Think Narain and Karun for India. Ho-Pin Tung and Congfu Cheng from China.

Lets not forget as a nation that appreciates racing we go further back than Sepang. Alex Yoong is not a product of Sepang. He is a product of Batu Tiga circuit and we had a really thriving scene in the 80s.

I've not even mentioned how hard it is to find engineers, mechanics, marketers etc for this(almost F1) level of racing.

Believe it or not despite having a world class F1 circuit, our motorsport 'industry' is almost non-existent! I know because I'm in it. It's quite perplexing but I hope things can begin to change. I hope there is more emphasis on grass roots development via both the Education Ministry and Sports Ministry. Even if there is an initiative, it will take time but the important thing is to start.

Meanwhile we thank Alex, Fairuz, Jazeman and all the other young F1 aspirants with wealthy parents who believed in their dreams.

A1Diablo,

its a good thing finally somebody from our own national motoring scene getting the feedback to this forum. its very refreshing i must say.

so maybe u can tell why cant our age level drivers get to the next stage? i mean like u say about aaron, since A1 is too high for him, i guess it has more to do with his skills. why dont u guys sent him doing other lower level single seater, doing some competitions to get the confidence and develop the kid's ability? dont stay here (malaysia) if the scene is too small, get outside. i believe there are alot single seater racings going on this part of the world.

and statistics mentioned about almost all other aspirant f1 drivers go out of their country to pursue the next big thing. why cant our kids?

maybe u can tell us why our corporations/ private sectors are very scared to take chances with these kids? since the government decided to look at other sports which might be cheaper than motor racings, i believe these private sectors need to step in and give some incentives.

is it because the cake is too small here?

how about rallying/ motor biking/ other motor sports, are we getting anywhere with the drivers/bikers we currently have?

almost forget about jazeeman, but yeah hopefully hes doing allright in britain.

open trackday rm500per car n rm250 for bikes in 2011. tbc

Very simple question.
RM300 for a track day and we are all bitching.

Want to race competitively for 1 year in Formula BMW Pacific.
Be prepared to fork out RM800k for the whole season. How about testing too?

How many people see that much money in our life time?
And even if we do are anyone of us prepared to spend so much with almost no returns?

Doesn't help too that we are probably among the poorest nation per capita to have a F1 race on the calendar. Sounds daft eh. =( We Malaysian are pretty poor and stuck in the between the devil and the deep blue sea. ouch.

Fortunately the newer generation of karters are at least given the opportunity to get some Formula BMW exposure.

It would be cool if Sepang could have more night sessions for us plebeians on alternative nights since many of us have to work for a living during the day. Then they can maximise more of the track.

All the best to SIC. And don't let the contractors fleece you guys and hope open tenders are the order of the day to revive the glory of Sepang's facilities.

I'm not sure whether if I'm correct. I just feel that our Ministry of Sport is focusing more on Badminton than Motor Racing.

Medias also important to promote motor sports and attract potential driver. We don't see much local media coverage on motor sports. Just look at Drifting event, cub prix, MME etc.. It's really seldom you can see newspaper sport section making coverage on it.

Just look at the coverage on Badminton when our Chong Wei win. I don't see such coverage when our local drifters won an event.

You ask any stranger on the street of KL who is Lee Chong Wei...I can say many will know but if you mention our local race driver or drifter...I bet mostly will just shake their head.

Our race drivers are really the underdog.

it could go down to the ultimate one - cost.

thats why i would like feedbacks from the industry's insiders. what the real obstacle in it. i feel we cannot just simply call for government's head. not that i am supporting this or that, but with the already spiraling price of developing a world champion, i pretty sure whoever the government, will continue to overlook motorsport.

why our corporations seems to be in-interested to sponsor the kids (if cost is proved to be the problem)? is it the talent not that justify-able to sponsored? or the cake is too small, thus making this type of sport a bit niche?

not only in f1, but the others, like rallying, superbikes/biking, motorcross, etc etc etc.

i really love at one point of my life to witness a world champion in motoring, regardless whether an F1 or rallying or biking or whatever. i do. for me this individual sport have higher chance of success compare to team sport, because of the less risk of not getting it done. get the things right and a bit of luck, there u got it.

but at times, i was wondering whether this kind of sport is a niche type. the ratio of development perhead is sometimes unjustifiable. but yes there are sacrifices. i do hope i am proved wrong.

Price is not the stumbling block for corporations. It is value. They have the money but what is the value(returns) for them especially when compared to spending in 'traditional' advertising.

What they ask is fair but I disagree when sports sponsorship is treated like a CSR (charity) activity. Happens when they do not understand the returns or worse the people asking for support do not understand it.

Local corporations generally have low awareness of sports marketing particularly when it comes to motorsport. There is not a real sports marketing industry here to begin with let alone a proper motorsport industry that they can try and understand. It's 'cowboy town' with motorsport and corporations are even very skeptical for being burned by unprofessional motorsport parties. Local racing teams probably themselves don't know enough about commercial marketing so it's a catch 22 situation because the foundations of the industry is not there.

In my view it's all a result of how much in infancy we are with racing despite having a glamorous window dressing F1 event for the nation. There is unfortunately no foundation underneath our involvement in F1. When the govt recognizes how important sports and motorsport is to the development of the country then we'll see some initiatives.

I'm not saying that its all down to the govt but they certainly have an important role to play. Other players in the 'industry' are already doing what they can including us but we're not responsible for infrastructure development.

Thus is reply to your earlier comments to Aaron, we're not responsible for his personal career of a driver. We're responsible for running a successful race team for A1GP and delivering returns to sponsors. We did what we could within our limited capacity to help him AND other junior drivers where possible.

It's also not a question of 'skill' but more of EXPERIENCE and there is no shortcut to gaining the correct experience. You have to go through the established development ladder from karting all the way to F1. There is a set path to get into F1 and within an age window. The problem is for aspiring drivers, it costs A LOT of money to take the path with no guarantees that a corporation will notice them along the way and finance them all the way to F1.

"Why Bernie Ecclestone never complaints Silverstone, SPA , Brazil circuit"
who said he never, Silverstone almost lost it.
im guessing ether spend RM60mil or lost F1. India and Russia and a few other country is waiting in line whos willing to spend more.

I might be wrong, but spore spend SND90mil every year to host F1..