A fit for F1?

Scepticism has surrounded Korea's attempts to host a GP. Skysports.com visited this year's race.

Formula One has reached out in the last decade or so, far beyond its traditional European stronghold to embrace the globe in a way only football can match. Two new races have been announced in the United States - one in the past few days - yet the expansion has been most startling in an easterly direction: through the Middle East and Asia, with India now on board and Russia to follow. All have little in the way of motorsport heritage, but plenty of desire to be seen as players. And, let's face it, plenty of money to catch the eye of Bernie Ecclestone. These days, the business end of the season is tilted in favour of F1's new world, with Japan and Brazil long established on the calendar but Singapore (whose first race was in 2008), Abu Dhabi (2009), Korea (2010) and India (2011) all deciding to chase the kudos associated with hosting the world's most glamorous sport, whilst at the same time hoping its presence can provide an economic boost. It's easy to see why F1 makes such a snug bedfellow with Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Primarily it's the spectacle: the backdrop of a glistening cityscape or cars passing under a luxury hotel which lights up like a Christmas tree when the sun sets. If the racing's good then that's a bonus, but it doesn't seem the be-all-and-end-all. Of course - as 69 Monaco Grands Prix can attest - such thinking is nothing new, but it does seem to have taken hold of late. The latest race in the USA seems to have been dreamt up mainly to satisfy Ecclestone's craving for a race in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline. On the face of it, the Korean Grand Prix doesn't fit the pattern at all. Almost as soon as the race was first announced in September 2009, a sense of scepticism surrounded this mysterious, low-key addition, one that persisted right up until the first race 13 months ago. The new Korean International Circuit gained its FIA licence only 10 days before F1 cars first took to the track in anger; the final touches were still being made as they lapped it. The inaugural race was good viewing, but that was at a distance of 6,000-plus miles. It started in pouring rain, ended almost in darkness and there soon followed reports of high prices, ticket giveaways, hotel shortages and endless queues. Chaos, in other words. The one plus point was that the drivers gave the track itself the thumbs-up. But when have they suffered for the lack of a bed or been forced to stand outside in the rain for hours? It came as no surprise, then, that the chance to attend this year's race was not met with quite the anticipation one would normally expect. Perhaps lessons might not have been learnt? It seemed a long way to travel to get soaked and accomodation still seemed in short supply. A late night call to a hotel hotline set up in response to last year's problems brought only mutual incomprehension and choosing to ignore the 'love hotels' in the nearby city of Mokpo I'd read about, I was merely grateful to secure a bed somewhere in Jeollanam-do, the same province as the track. The hotel seemed a long way away but what the hell, I thought, let's have an adventure. Yet at the same time, it was difficult to get too carried away by the thrill of discovery: how alien can visiting a grand prix in a country with the world's 15th largest GDP actually be? Seven days and six nights isn't nearly enough time to explore subtleties. The cultural gap remained, by and large, unbridged while language skills would stay non-existent. At the very least I could draw a picture. By the end of the week, doodling buses and toilets had become second nature. Practicalities were what mattered. Having stayed in Seoul for one night, the next step was to head about 250 miles in a southwesterly direction. That the race is staged so far away from the nation's capital is seen as a negative, with Sebastian Vettel for one saying the track's rural location is "a bit too quiet" for his tastes. The parallel to be drawn is of a British Grand Prix held in, say, Devon. I imagined a Korean counterpart suddenly transported from Heathrow and trying to find his bearings in Tiverton, sketchpad and pen at the ready. How might he cope? I thought I was doing quite well, helped in no small part by the fact that Korea's KTX express train heads the right way. In fact, it goes all the way to Mokpo. But the decision to grasp the nettle and book a hotel before flying meant alighting instead at Gwangju, the largest city in the southwest of the country and a good hour further north. I was, in fact, staying another hour east of Gwangju, on the edge of a national park near the town of Gurye. Reality was now dawning: the desire had been to get as close to the action as possible, yet here I was stuck in the back end of beyond. Beautiful mountain views were the upside but getting to the track sounded, frankly, like a pain. It would also require a stupidly early start, one taxi, two buses, plenty of hanging around and there was still no guarantee of getting to the track on time, if at all. Standing at Gurye Bus Terminal at 6:50am on Saturday morning, I wondered whether it might not have been better to stay in Seoul and simply get the train down for the race. Instead, I resolved to make this the dry run; it was qualifying day and, like Vettel and co., a quick time was all-important. Anything under five hours would do. As it turned out, the journey took a little over four. But what became apparent is that Korean buses are, like their trains, fantastic: cheap, on time and with plenty of room. Actually, the latter was not the case with the second bus, a 'special' that ferried F1 fans from Gwangju to the track. But in the context of last year's logistical cock-up, it was gratifying to know that a) the bus actually existed and b) a seat was available. A hiccup came when the driver appeared not to know where to drop us off but that hardly mattered: we'd spent no more than five minutes in a traffic jam. Beat that Silverstone. It was not just in terms of transport and traffic that the organisers had upped their game. There was no queueing in and out of the track at all and after returning to the coach park after qualifying, we were back on the open road within 20 minutes. Naturally I'd expected worse on race day but, even with the anticipated bigger crowds, it was actually easier: knowing exactly what to do this time around cut over an hour off my journey, and there was even less time spent waiting for a bus after the race than there had been on Saturday. I even helped a local fan save time; it went like a dream. Viewed this time at a distance of metres, so did Vettel. In contrast to my own efforts, there's no doubt that the Korean Grand Prix was well organised this year. But will it survive? Unfortunately, the sight of sparsely-populated, even empty, grandstands told its own story. The race is being run at a loss (an inquiry earlier this year reportedly put the overall debt at $438million and rising) and by the time I was back in Seoul 24 hours later, stories had emerged that organisers (who receive funding from the Jeollanam-do provincial government) want to cut a more favourable deal with Ecclestone. His response was typically pointed. "There are lots of things in life you can't afford, and you don't have to have them." Ecclestone was speaking at the Indian Grand Prix, an event which has already been judged an outstanding success. On the face of it, F1 seems a better fit with the land that brought us the IPL and yet travelling through Korea, one sees plenty of evidence of a country that, while not moving forward at the rate it did 30 to 40 years ago, is still striving: the majority of passengers on the Seoul metro (which has a stop called Digital Media City) seemed fixated by hand-held devices while the countryside is dotted with ongoing civil engineering projects. The track is supposed to be one such, yet plans to build a complex featuring residential properties and a marina nearby appear to have stalled. Like the Turkish Grand Prix, another race held on a good track in a poor location for a mainly disinterested (and outpriced) populace, Korea is in danger of becoming surplus to requirements; a risk that didn't come off. Yet the fact is that, in terms of destinations, F1 can deem it so. It really is spoiled for choice right now. With thanks to KLM and Expedia www.expedia.co.uk for their help.