How F1’s arrival in China proved a success in unexpected ways

It is bizarre to consider a new season which starts on the last day of February and runs until the second week in December. Not only is it Formula 1’s most ambitious ever calendar, it’s the first to lay COVID to rest. Isn’t that in the past?

Not if you live in China, a country which hasn’t hosted its grand prix since 2019. Notwithstanding further pandemics, when the cars exit the pitlane at Shanghai International Circuit on 21 April it will be five years and one week since Lewis Hamilton won the sixteenth running of the Chinese GP.

It’s 20 years since that first event, a milestone in F1’s growth which was questioned by some and yet was undoubtedly an important addition from a commercial perspective. Back then the thought was that some of China’s giant companies would help fill the gap left by F1’s soon-to-depart tobacco sponsors. This was somewhat naive.

Formula 1 was relatively unknown in China and the country’s larger companies didn’t need a ‘European’ motor racing series to help reach domestic customers. Instead, the opportunity was for F1 to use its presence in the country to offer international brands unprecedented access to what was, at the time, the world’s most populous country. One with increasingly wealthy middle- and upper-income households.

Around the time of the inaugural race, held in September 2004, I spent two months living in the Intercontinental Hotel in Shanghai’s Pudong district. My task was to sell Jaguar Racing to Chinese investors and save the jobs of everyone employed in Milton Keynes. If the team could not be sold it would be closed. ‘No pressure’.

One of my main targets was Yu Zhifei, the man responsible for making the Chinese Grand Prix happen. A former football team boss, he proved to be initially elusive, then noncommittal when it came to the idea of creating a Chinese-backed F1 team. Somewhere in Shanghai there is still the 25%-scale wind tunnel model of a Jaguar in China Team Ford livery, a key element of that presentation.

Photo by: Sutton Images

Pictured with Eddie Jordan in 2003, Chinese GP key player Yu Zhifei was a potential target to take over the Jaguar team

Fortunately, the other person trying to sell Jaguar Racing, team principal Tony Purnell, was having better luck with one of the team’s sponsors, Red Bull. Dietrich Mateschitz was decidedly more enthusiastic than Yu Zhifei and, as is often the case, things worked out for the best.

Mateschitz bought the team, saved everyone’s job and created Red Bull Racing. By the time the team started winning F1 races in 2009, Yu Zhifei had been jailed for embezzlement. China, however, remained important.

These days China’s fast-growing companies are eager to sell abroad, to reach international markets and help build their own home-grown brands

Three months before my stay in Shanghai, Ferrari opened its first dealership on the mainland, customers having previously had to order cars via Hong Kong. Today it has 25 dealers, reflecting the importance of China for so many of the companies involved in F1. A quarter of all cars leaving Maranello’s production lines are now sold in Asia, with China the major player. Talk to Aston Martin or McLaren and the story’s the same.

That’s not the only change, however, for these days China’s fast-growing companies are eager to sell abroad, to reach international markets and help build their own homegrown brands. This is a further opportunity for Formula 1 and, in addition to the Chinese automotive brands including Geely, MG Motor and BYD pushing hard for growth, there are plenty of consumer goods and technology companies eyeing international markets.

Twenty years later, the move to China has never seemed more timely.

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

China will host its first Grand Prix since 2019 this year