2011 date for Indian Grand Prix

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Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed the first Indian Grand Prix will take place in 2011 and not 2010 as was originally announced just over a year ago.

Building work on the track was scheduled to begin nine days ago. The site for the race track was surveyed by Hermann Tilke who has designed most new F1 tracks over the past decade (A1-Ring, Sepang, Bahrain, Shanghai, Istanbul, Valencia, Singapore) and done redesign work at other venues (Magny-Cours. Hockenheimring, Nurburgring). India is believed to have a ten-year contract.

However the race is being promoted by the Indian Olympic Association and there were concerns whether the Commonwealth Games being hosted in Delhi in 2010 might interfere with the hosting of a Grand Prix.

Force India F1 Team boss Vijay Mallya, who is involved in the organisation of the event, said earlier he was expecting the venue to be ready in time for 2010. He was understood to be hoping to install an Indian driver in one of his cars in time for the race – potentially GP2 racer Karun Chandhok.

South Korea has also claimed a place on the 2010 calendar but little is known about its plans as well.

The present economic turmoil will only make it harder for a new promoter to fund both the construction of an F1-class venue and the high prices demanded by Ecclestone.

2009 F1 calendar

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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11 comments on “2011 date for Indian Grand Prix”

  1. Another boring tilke track on its way!
    Another ecclestone money track on its way!

  2. Couldn’t agree more, sassan.

  3. booo Tilke booo. There you go, my first F1 booing 0)

  4. I agree that herman tilke designed not the most spectacular circuits.
    maybe we must try another designer?????
    just to get some variation:)

  5. HounslowBusGarage
    11th October 2008, 11:13

    South Korea in 2010? I wonder if Bernie will force that to be a night race – if it actually happens?
    It’ll be in the same time zone as Japan and Adelaide (I think), which is one hour further away from Europe than China and Singapore.

  6. Anyone seen any pictures of what the circuit is going to look like ?

  7. Anyone seen any pictures of what the circuit is going to look like ?

    I can guess though with Tilke.
    Slow corner – leading to long straight – hairpin
    (repeat on another section of track)
    Join the two sections with medium \ slow speed corners.

    Let’s hope there’s some decent gradient to add a bit of character to the track, as another Tilke track doesn’t really up my confidence in it being great.

  8. I’ll look like another Scalextric circuit…
    …only far less fun than an actual Scalextric circuit.

  9. Baron in Korea
    5th January 2009, 4:30

    I can see why India might want to postpone their race, but Korea? Who’s kidding who?
    They’ve done nothing to prepare for an F1 race, only talk about it. The only significant (if you could call it that) race course is at Everland, and safety-wise, it probably wouldn’t pass muster with a foreign-based car club, let alone an International racing body.
    I think Korea blew once before, and Bernie pulled their plug. I’ll bet that Bernie does it again.

  10. Anybody know the date for 2011 F1 @ Nurburgring. We are looking at coming over but I cant find dates.
    Cheers,
    RayS

  11. 2011 Nurburgring has not been confirmed due to financial issues, currently they discuss to have the race at Hockenheim again.

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