Shanghai to Begin Building F1 Race Track

Shanghai will begin constructing a race track this month and is hoping to host a Formula One Grand Prix in 2004, an official at the company building the circuit told Reuters on Monday.

"We have reached an agreement with the Formula One Administration (FOA) to stage the race in the city from 2004 to 2010," said the official at Shanghai International Circuit Co.

However, whether Shanghai would become the first mainland Chinese city to host a Grand Prix would depend on approval from the International Automobile Association, said the official who declined to be identified.

The project involved an initial investment of more than two billion yuan ($240 million), the official said.

Racing facilities would be built according to international standards and the area would include a theme park to attract tourists when no races were being held, she said.

The Formula One calendar contains 17 Grands Prix, 11 of them in Europe. Many countries are clamouring for a slot in the Championship and are ready to build state-of-the-art circuits.

India, Dubai and Egypt have been mentioned as possible venues and Turkey is another candidate.

"If we had got India and China, we would have half the world population or something like it," International Automobile Federation president Max Mosley said in February.

Malaysia was the latest newcomer in 1999. The next new venue, at one point tipped to be China, looks likely to be Russia with a circuit outside Moscow scheduled for completion in 2003.

China spent more than nine years developing a circuit in Zhuhai in the southern province of Guangdong that was scheduled to join the Formula One calendar in 1998. But it failed to meet international standards.