Apart from in Japan, motor racing in Asia has suffered from lack of funding and political instability although in recent years, as the Asian Tigereconomies have developed, there have been signs that Asia will become a much more important player in mot Of all the Asian countries, Malaysia had the most motor racing tradition, dating back to the days of the European colonial system when wealthy Europeans shipped cars out from Europe and competed against one another. When the colonial system was disman There were a few street races which survived like Singapore's Thomson Road, which hosted a regular "Grand Prix" right up to the early 1970s. This featured an unusual hazard for racers, sticky oil trails left on the roads from the local diesel buses. < There were similar events in Malaysia with street races in Johore Bahru, at Penang and on a road circuit near Kuala Lumpur named after the country's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahmann. This circuit was abandoned in the 1960s when a purpose-buil In the early 1980s Formula Atlantic was a visitor to the 2.1 mile circuit and, in the hope of attracting major international races, the track underwent major modification and was extended to 2.3 miles for a visit of the World Sportscar Championship in There is also a permanent racing circuit at Pasir Gudang, an industrial port city near Johore Bahru - close to Singapore. This first gained international recognition with a Formula 3 race in 1989 but it was not until 1998 that the 2.4 mile track hoste In the mid-1990s Malaysian president Dr. Mahathir Mohamad embarked on a series of projects designed to turn Malaysia into a fully industrialized country by the year 2020. Mahathir ordered Malaysian companies to invest in the automotive industry: the n The most extraordinary part of the plan was the construction of a Multimedia Super Corridorlinking Kuala Lumpur with the impressive new Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang. The corridor will include two intelligentcities designed for the 21st In nearby Indonesia, General Raden Suharto had similar plans to those of Dr. Mahathir. The dictator hoped to use Grand Prix racing as a means of promoting Indonesia's car industry. This was being overseen by Suharto's youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra Hutomo MP also bought shareholdings in Lamborghini and the America sportscar company Vector in an effort to spread Indonesian influence around the world. He was a keen racing driver - under the name Tommy Suharto - and also chairman of the country's n Other countries in the region had considered using F1 as a means of promotion. In the 1960s and early 1970s Singapore ran a regular Grand Prixon the roads in the north of the island, including along sections of the Thomson Road. The organizers even bu Thailand has a permanent racing circuit near the city of Pattaya. The Bira International Circuit hosts rounds of the South East Asian Touring Car series and has extensive karting operations.
The development of motorsport in India was largely restricted to the use of the old British airbases at Bangalore, Madras, and Sholavaram, near Chennai. Various motor clubs were established and ultimately they joined forces to form the Federation of M Rallying proved to be easier to organize and was much more successful - notably the dramatic Himalayan Rally in the north and it was only in 1988 that work began on the construction of a proper racing circuit at Irungattukutai, outside Madras.
In 1998 two British-based businessmen began to make plans for the construction of a F1-specification track and after feasibility studies of Bangalore, Pune (near Bombay) and Delhi chose Calcutta as the best location and identified two possible sites f China began planning to build a Formula 1 circuit as early as 1991, picking the city of Zhuhai - which is only 35 miles from Hong Kong. The development, which included hotels and a golf course, was shared between the Chinese government and Malaysian b South Korea has also shown interest in hosting an F1 race with plans for a Grand Prix track being announced in 1998. The Sepoong Group planned to construct a 2.8-mile track in the Chollabuk-do region. The financial crises later that year put paid to t