F1 confirms new Chinese GP contract and date change

2018 F1 season

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The Shanghai International Circuit will continue to host the Chinese Grand Prix until at least 2020 following the announcement of a new, three-year contract.

The three-year deal between Formula One Management and Shanghai Juss Sports Development will come into effect from next season.

A new date has also been announced for next year’s race, which was originally scheduled to take place on April 8th. It will swap places with the Bahrain Grand Prix, originally scheduled for April 15th, becoming the second round of the championship.

“This great country has already demonstrated an overwhelming show of interest in our sport and we firmly believe there is still a great deal of unexplored potential here,” said F1 CEO Chase Carey.

“That’s why this renewed agreement is so important as part of our development strategy, especially in this part of the world. We and our partners in this venture want to make this Formula One Chinese Grand Prix even more spectacular, while bringing Chinese fans ever closer to the sport.”

Shanghai Juss Sports Development chairman Jiang Lan said the race “is the most highly anticipated annual event in the city of Shanghai.”

“Since its Shanghai debut in 2004, the Formula One Chinese F1 Grand Prix has become a motorsport show piece for China but also a fixture for all of Asia Pacific’s and global motorsports fans,” he added.

The news means both races which were provisionally listed on the 2018 F1 calendar subject to the completion of new contracts have both been confirmed. A contract extension for the Singapore Grand Prix was announced two weeks ago.

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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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4 comments on “F1 confirms new Chinese GP contract and date change”

  1. ”the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, when people visit the graves of their ancestors. This is a three-day holiday from April 5-7”

    – If a reason like this is why the Chinese don’t want to keep their provisional date then why were they okay to be close to this particular national holiday this year? And furthermore, an even better alternative would be to put the Chinese GP to April 22, so that it would form back-to-back with the Azerbaijan GP as travelling from Shanghai to Baku would be easier jet lag-wise than travelling from Bahrain to Shanghai. The same applies to Japan and Russia: They should switch dates as well to lessen the impact of the jet lag as east-to-west travelling is easier jet lag-wise than west-to-east travelling., i.e., the Japanese GP to September 30th and the Russian GP to October 7th. These two suggested changes are the ones that should be made to next season’s race calendar at the very least.

  2. Two races in a row signed through 2020. Bernie purposely avoided this situation to minimize negotiating power of the circuits. It seems the promoters are hedging their bets against the question marks surrounding F1 post 2020.
    Formula One enterprise value is $18 billion. Oh my…

    1. Three year deals have always been quite common though, one would struggle to do less because it needs commitment on both sides. Scary as it is to say it, we aren’t very far off the 2020s now

  3. “This great country has already demonstrated an overwhelming show of interest in our sport”.

    …right.

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