Mosley: night racing not yet a reality

The recent announcement that Singapore would join the F1 calendar in 2008 was coupled with an insistence from Bernie Ecclestone that the race around Singapore's streets would be held at night in an effort to add to the spectacle as well as making the event more accessible to European TV viewers.

Ecclestone has also warned that the future of the Australian Grand Prix could be under threat if the race did not take place at night in order to boost television audiences in Europe.

According to Mosley, however, the concept has not yet formally been presented to the FIA.

"The thing is, we've not actually had any application yet to run a night race," Mosley told reporters in Monaco.

"There are no (existing) criteria. If and when we get an application to run a night race, that will have to go to the circuit commission, and that will go to the safety commission, and eventually the world council.

"And there will be criteria - there will be criteria for armco, safety barriers, run-off areas. There would have to be criteria for the lighting, and all this would be looked at. We obviously would not approve a night race unless we were satisfied with the safety levels."

Mosley also suggested that the FIA might be reluctant to authorise a Formula One night race without testing the concept on another category such as GP2 first.

"I suspect that, as is also usual with new circuits, that we would want to run some sort of other racing that way before we committed the world championship," he added.