Hope for Vietnam GP ebbs away after four-year delay
F1 News
- GPblog.com
In 2018, a 10-year contract was signed between F1 and the organisers of the Vietnam Grand Prix. Preparations for the 2020 event were ready, but the Grand Prix never took place. Vietnam is not on the calendar in 2023 either, so hopes are fading.
It was one of the first major announcements and changes to the F1 calendar since Liberty Media took the reins at Formula 1. There would be an F1 race in Hanoi in Vietnam as of 2020. A deal was made for as much as 10 years which would cost the organisers of the event as much as $60 million a year. This money taken care of by VinGroup. It is now 2022 and no Vietnam GP has ever taken place. Since corona threw a spanner in the works in 2020, there has been little talk of the Vietnam GP.
Hope for Vietnam GP ebbs away
We now know that the Vietnamese GP will not be on the calendar in 2023 either. That means the race has now been postponed for at least four years. The South African ENCA.com writes that hopes of making the event a reality are fading. Most distressingly, the entire track and all facilities were already ready and the park now looks abandoned. The medium writes that the site is closed, but cyclists often find their way in to cycle undisturbed on the spacious asphalt surface.
The 10-year deal was partly meant to improve Hanoi's image and make it reflect the country's economic growth. That the Mayor and strong supporter of the GP, Nguyen Duc Chung, had been arrested for corruption did not help. "Without Chung, the future of the race is very gloomy." Meanwhile, there are also rumours that the city government wants to ban the race at least until 2029.