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Plea to make F1 races more attractive
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FORMULA One needs to make the races attractive again so as to retain its fans, Chinese Grand Prix organizers said.
It’s the 12th year for Shanghai to host the most prestigious motor racing event. A total of 145,000 fans turned up at Shanghai International Circuit in suburban Jiading District over the weekend. According to Yang Yibin, marketing manager of organizer Juss Event, the local F1 fan base has been comparatively stable. However, the drawing power of the race itself has been declining over the years.
“There are various reasons, like one team dominating several seasons; smaller teams finding it hard to challenge the bigger constructors; etc. The races are not as brilliant as they were a decade ago,” Yang told Shanghai Daily.
Shanghai signed a new 7-year contract to host F1 races, which will expire after the year 2017. “Shanghai is one of the few cities in China that holds a lot of international sports events every year, which play an important role in building the city’s image,” he added
Asked whether Shanghai will extend the contract beyond 2017, Yang said it would depend on an estimation report by the city government to see how much contribution F1 has made to raise Shanghai’s influence on the international stage.
“Changes have to be made to the sport. UBS was the title sponsor of last year’s Chinese GP, but they didn’t extend the contract this year, and there must be a reason for it. Maybe we can expect something new when we go into the post-Bernie (Ecclestone) era,” Yang added.
F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone, however, said that “F1 has always been like this”.
“In the (Michael) Schumacher era, it was also one team taking the lead for a long time. But yes, when Schumacher was dominating, the races were more exciting to watch than (Sebastian) Vettel’s.”
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