How F1's white-elephant track addiction went bust

I'm a contender for an unusual record, one which is likely to remain unbroken: the slowest lap of the Korea International Circuit.

Admittedly, I was on foot, but not a whole lot else has circulated that 3.4 miles of unhallowed asphalt since I laced up my Adidas Supernovas and trotted round at a modest pace after qualifying for the 2013 Korean Grand Prix had taken place.

It took around half an hour, during which time I saw precisely one other human being - and that was Formula 1 event director Alexandre Molina, jogging by at an altogether greater clip. The evening breeze whispered over and through grandstands that had been empty all day.

As F1's booming expansion into new territories turned to bust this past decade, I've often had cause to reflect on this quiet perambulation around a soon-to-be-forgotten facility, the signs of neglect already manifesting themselves in the weed-dotted margins around concrete and asphalt that had been freshly poured just three years earlier.

The Korea International Circuit was, is and forever shall be a monument to human folly.

There's a time-worn story about how F1 got hooked on government money. Like many such stories there's likely to be more than a grain of truth amid the exaggerations that have grown with each telling.

It goes something like this: when closing the deal to put Adelaide on the grand prix calendar for 1985, the South Australia government sent a delegation to Bernie Ecclestone's offices along with an upfront payment in cash.

Put your scepticism on hold for a second. The point of the story is that here was a man who had been wrestling with shysters, fantasists and fly-by-nights - race promoters to you and me - for years, with all the attendant risks of them failing to pay up. But here was something new, something gilt-edged: government. It was a lightbulb moment.

The story may be twaddle, but history records the Australian Grand Prix as ground zero for a new kind of event, one state-sponsored rather than the product of individuals who, as often as not, melted away without paying their dues.

It's an essential thread in the tapestry of F1 history, coming at a point when Ecclestone was transforming the way money flowed through the championship.

As the 2010s began there were signs that F1's rapid expansion wasn't sustainable

Later, after he'd sold out to cash-hungry venture capitalists in the mid-2000s, Bernie would be compelled by his new paymasters to scour the globe for governments eager to place themselves on the sporting map.

The Malaysian Grand Prix, which had by then been reliably pumping government wonga through F1's veins since 1999, would provide the model for this dash-for-cash.

Malaysia's was a classically unbalanced tiger economy, which migrated from agriculture to industry at a breakneck pace in the 1990s. Sepang Circuit was merely one of many mega-projects built at the time, such as the brand new airport alongside it and the Petronas Towers in nearby Kuala Lumpur.

Seldom overburdened with spectators as a result of local people largely being unable to afford the ticket prices, Sepang was also the first major project for Hermann Tilke, soon to become F1's circuit architect of choice.

Through the 2000s, Bernie continued to 'look east'. He tied up deals with Bahrain, Turkey, China and Abu Dhabi for new events on grandiose new Tilke-drawn clean-sheet facilities, with Singapore for a night race on the city streets, and with Toyota to bring the Japanese Grand Prix back to a Tilke-rehabilitated Fuji Speedway.

Disparate places, but mostly with a common denominator: thrusting countries flush with cash, some perhaps lacking in the civil liberties department, but all eager to feel the warmth of the PR glow F1 emits.

But even as the still, just, present decade began there were signs that this expansion wasn't sustainable.

Toyota followed Honda out of F1 in the wake of the global financial crisis for 2010 and its enthusiasm for hosting the Japanese Grand Prix evaporated along with its team. Istanbul dropped off the calendar in '12, when Ecclestone's financial demands stuck in the craw of the Turkish Ministry of Sports come contract renewal time.

Even so, Korea joined the calendar in 2010, followed by India in '11. While enjoying tacit government support, these races represented a virulent new strain of hubris: now the investment came from big corporations and each country's Tilke-designed autodrome was anticipated to be the jewel in the crown of a bold new property development.

Artist's impressions of the Korean track pictured it at the heart of a new housing and business development, with a marina nearby; while perhaps light on bucolic charm, this area of South Korea was a powerful international shipping and shipbuilding hub until overcapacity made the bottom drop out of the industry in the middle of the decade. While leading figures in the South Jeolla provincial government championed the project, much of the hard cash was to come from Hyundai Heavy Industries.

Buddh International Circuit was to be part of Jaypee Sports City, a similar development but including other sports facilities such as a cricket stadium. The Jaypee Group was one of the area's biggest infrastructure construction businesses.

Both circuits were completed late - famously, Buddh's pit complex was missing a top floor in year one and featured a staircase leading nowhere.

The Korean Grand Prix was on a hiding to nothing because questions about the circuit's cost to the taxpayers were being posed while the concrete was still being poured. The local politicians who had waved the construction through had been voted out of office before it hosted its first race - an event which was shambolically half-arsed.

You could say F1's white-elephant races were obviously doomed from the start

Bad weather and dysfunctional traffic management prevented the majority of spectators from getting in on race day, and it was a ghost town thereafter until the final grand prix in 2013.

Mokpo, the nearest city, was a funny old place. As a port, it did have hotels, but these were generally tilted towards what we might delicately call ultra-short-term occupation. Tales abounded of F1 folk returning to their billets to find evidence that additional bodies had, ahem, used the facilities during their absence.

All in all, it was not the most pleasant final destination for a commute that involved 12 hours on a plane from Europe and several more on a high-speed train.

Lack of political will (and, in the Indian event's case, a hotly disputed tax bill) brought these short-lived events to a swift conclusion. The Korean facility is believed to have cost upwards of $70million to build, and it is still surrounded by swampland rather than luxury apartments.

Likewise, Buddh International Circuit is surrounded by unfinished plots - many of which were sub-let - where Jaypee Sports City ought to be. The Jaypee Group overstretched itself financially and failed to deliver buildings on the site for which it had taken deposits totalling around $28million; this month the owner of the land the circuit sits on revoked Jaypee's lease on it.

F1 still races in China, but that event's future has been called into question several times this past decade. Azerbaijan has already begun to cavil at the amount it is paying. Bahrain and Abu Dhabi remain heavily invested in F1 but their circuits are, tellingly, frequently used and able to wash their faces commercially.

Compare and contrast with Korea, where the F1 setup crews would find decaying food residue from the previous year's grand prix still in the fridges.

In hindsight, you could say the white-elephant races were obviously doomed from the start. What future, then, for the Vietnam Grand Prix in Hanoi, where F1 will descend for the first time next year?