Singapore to revise track for 2009 race

Although the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix, won by Fernando Alonso, was hailed a huge success, race chiefs are looking at ways to make the 2009 event even better.

In particular, event chairman Colin Syn says they are looking at reprofiling the first sequence of corners in the hope of making it easier for drivers to overtake.

Speaking to autosport.com, Syn said: "We are modifying turns one, two and three because we want drivers to have more opportunities to overtake this year."

There are also plans to work on improving the track surface, which drew criticism from drivers as the most bumpy on the Formula One calendar and required teams to make drastic setup changes.

"We want to reduce the bumps and smoothen out the circuit," said Syn. "So that will be an improvement next year to make the race even better than it was in 2008."

It is also understood that modifications will be made to the controversial Turn 10, where high kerbs caused several accidents last year - most notably for Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen during the race.

F1's first night race at Singapore last year was labelled a huge success, with drivers, teams and onlookers all impressed with the efforts made by race organisers.

Former world champion Mika Hakkinen, who attended the event last year, said: "We saw an absolutely fascinating Grand Prix, a fantastic race and everything went fine. So I think we had two Grand Prix winners - one was Fernando Alonso and the other was Singapore."