1/9/2023 0 Comments F1 2020 vietnam setupBy the end of March 13, Vietnam had also been postponed, in a move that turned out to be the beginning of the end of the race, at least for now. He had been to Hanoi for talks about the Covid situation ahead of its impending debut on the calendar. So the fanbase was extremely small, which was reflected in the lack of media knowledge as they rarely needed to cover the sport from afar.ĭavid Coulthard waves the Vietnamese flag during a 2018 Red Bull demonstration run in Ho Chi Min Cityīut that started to change when Red Bull carried out two show runs in the years leading up to the debut event, and to the outside world there was no reason to doubt that the full grid would soon be tearing around the Hanoi streets, trying to build that fanbase.į1 chairman Chase Carey arrived in Melbourne directly from Vietnam to announce the cancellation of 2020’s season-opening race. For a while the closest Formula 1 had come to having an impact on the country was when personnel tacked on holidays after the Malaysian Grand Prix. There had never been a race there before, or a driver or team associated with Vietnam. The race organisers were aware that knowledge of the sport was limited among their journalists, and why wouldn’t it be? I was lucky enough to visit the site of the circuit back in the summer of 2019, while in Hanoi to help provide training to local media about what they could expect when F1 came to town. In the end a race was approved when the VinGroup conglomerate committed to backing it financially, and work could begin on the venue around the My Dinh National Stadium. But he was largely a lone warrior, with little in the way of wider government support. It was championed by the chairman of Hanoi – Nguyen Duc Chung – who wanted to bring the sport to Vietnam. There had been talks about a potential grand prix in Vietnam stretching back to Bernie Ecclestone’s time in charge of F1, but it was under Liberty Media’s ownership that the race finally got the green light.į1 boss with Nguyen Duc Chung in 2018 after a press conference to announce the Vietnamese Grand Prix for 2020 The answer is a complex one, but unsurprisingly at the heart of it is Covid-19. So how did we end up with a brand new circuit sitting in a major city, and be facing the possibility that it will not be used for the purpose it was intended and never see an F1 car complete a single lap? The tight left of Turn 1 into the long slingshot right-hander of Turn 2 is set to be an overtaking hotspot – so a seat in the Turn 2 grandstand should be just the ticket for an afternoon of watching the drivers ducking and diving around each other.Sign-up now for access to a limited number of articles. And while Vietnam is not alone on the F1 calendar in offering visitors the chance to tack on some beach holiday action, the country does boast some of the world’s finest stretches of sand, which can be found less than three hours’ drive from the Hanoi track – as can the iconic Ha Long Bay, a location used in films like Tomorrow Never Dies and Kong: Skull Island Where is the best place to watch? Vietnam is a fascinating country, blending more traditional south-east Asian culture with the country’s French colonial past. The track will also feature a 1.5-km straight, with speeds expected to reach 335km/h. There’s a bit of the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit in Turns 1 and 2, a soupcon of Suzuka’s Esses in Turns 16-19, while even Monaco has been a reference point, with Turns 12-15 evoking the run up the hill from Sainte Devote to Massenet. The first track to be designed by Formula 1 itself, in association with Tilke – Hermann Tilke’s company, who’ve given us the likes of the Circuit of The Americas and the Bahrain International Circuit – the Hanoi Circuit will be a 5.6km, 23-turn semi-permanent track, one that’s been consciously designed to ape some of the best elements of iconic, existing F1 tracks.
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