Moscow Still Hoping for F1 Grand Prix

Moscow still hopes to host a Russian Formula One Grand Prix despite the collapse of a deal last year, a top city official said on Thursday.

"We're planning to build a top class circuit, good enough to host Formula One races, in the next couple of years and then hopefully we'll be able to stage the Grand Prix," Moscow's first deputy mayor Valery Shantsev told Reuters.

Bernie Ecclestone, who controls Formula One's commercial rights, has said he wants Russia on the calendar.

He came to the Russian capital to sign a contract with mayor Yuri Luzhkov last year and had expected Moscow to host a race as early as 2004 at a circuit which would have been built in Nagatino, a few kilometres southeast of the city centre.

But a deal was scuppered at the last minute when the two sides could not agree on a seven-year television contract, valued at around $250 million. Luzhkov blamed Ecclestone for the failure to reach an agreement.

"He wanted to keep all the rights for the event - ticketing, television, advertising - which would leave us with only engine smoke. That's why the negotiations failed," the mayor said at the time.

"That's what happens when somebody tries to impose unreasonable conditions on us," Shantsev said after hosting a reception for Renault drivers Fernando Alonso and Jarno Trulli in the city hall.

"I have to say that we're used to a much more favourable approach. But we haven't broken our dealings with Ecclestone completely and negotiations are still going on from time to time.

"By now he has been able to take his Formula One business to almost every major city in the world and I'm sure sooner or later he will come to us as well."

Spaniard Alonso and Italian Trulli are scheduled to have a demonstration drive around Moscow's Sparrow Hills on Saturday.

After scrapping the Nagatino project, Moscow officials now hope to build a circuit just north of the city. Shantsev said the city government and Renault are engaged in a joint venture to build a giant car plant in Moscow.