An F1 Race Track Here In The Philippines?

UPDATE:  So the UK F1 Lotus Team is here in the Philippines today (May 4, 2013) and they are having an F1 demo race here with Mark Stockinger who is incidentally (and I didn’t really know until now) is half Filipino!  That is such a good good sign.   That means having an F1 Race Track here in the Philippines is possible .  The F1 Race demo here in the Philippines happened earlier at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila and the next one will happen at tomorrow May 5, 2013 at SM Mall of Asia grounds! Isn’t that cool! Yay!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

This idea just dawned on me as soon as I heard the news that the Formula One organizers called off the F1 season opening  Bahrain Grand Prix  due to the unrest happening there.  The decision to cancel the race was upon the advice of the Bahrain Prince via press statement.  When or when the race will happen again is unsure.

So, being one race track down for F1 (and probably a couple more from the Middle Eastern countries, not that I’m celebrating the unrest)  I though maybe its high time that a new F1 race track, specifically here in the Philippines should be made, ASAP!

I’m not even sure how many months or years it will take to build a race track.  I’m betting it will cost more than US $200-300 million to build it, and building that race track is a very risky business, but its something to consider since its also good business for the country.

I have an idea where to put it too, we can build a track at the open field at Clark Pampangga, where the hot air balloon festival is yearly held.  Its huge, about  14.3 miles in area* this can host the 4km average size of an F1 race track.

Here’s some idea of the cost in building an F1 racetrack (Austin,Texas, USA)

The track could cost up to $220 million to build.
The track, designed by a German firm will be 3.4 miles long with 20 turns and elevations up to 133 feet.
Formula 1 has a 10-year deal to race in Austin beginning in 2012. Promoters project it could bring Texas between $200 million and $400 million per year.

I’m sure we can get lots of private investors, companies and corporations that will specifically benefit from an official F1 race  in the Philippines.

If the F1 organizers are worried about the access to the race track, its just 10-15 minutes away from the Clark Airport and  2 hours away from Metro Manila!  There’s lots of places to stay in Clark, Subic, Pampangga area and even the nearby provinces that can host all the expected 75,000 attendees/viewers/spectators of an F1 race.

With an F1 race track in the Philippines I don’t need to go to any nearby Asian countries with an official F1 race like Malaysia, China, Korea, Japan, India and  Singapore.

Official Formula One 2011 Schedule

Bahrain (Postponed),Australia (Mar 27), Malaysia (Apr 10), China (Apr 17),Turkey (May 8),  Spain (May 22),  Monaco (May 29), Canada (Jun 12), Europe (Jun 26), Great Britain (Jul 10), Germany (Jul 24), Hungary (July 31), Belgium (Aug 28), Italy (Sep 11), Singapore (Sep 25), Japan (Oct 9), Korea (Oct 16), India (Oct 30), Abu Dhabi (Nov 13), and Brazil (Nov 27).

Isn’t this an awesome crazy idea? Whatchatink?

Stay gorgeous everyone!

(news source http://en.espnf1.com/)(* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Air_Base , http://www.travelph.com/resorts/Clark/index.htm)