One of Liberty Media’s desires is to generate a geographically organised calendar, and according to Sean Bratches, the Vietnam Grand Prix will help this. An April date is expected after Formula 1 officially announced the Vietnam GP on Wednesday. At the same time, the Formula One Management (FOM) is confident that the track layout for the Vietnamese Grand Prix in 2020 will not lead to more ‘processional’ races, which proved to be one of the fans’ main concerns after the official announcement was made this week. It is sure that the new 5.6 kilometres Herman Tilke designed circuit around the streets of Hanoi will produce exciting racing.
Turns 1 and 2 have been modelled on the opening sequence of corners from the Nurburgring, with top speeds estimated to be around 335 km/h on the main straight. Sean Bratches, F1’s commercial managing director has put their confidence down to recent progress with the circuit design, and has also confirmed that the proposed date for the race would be April.
He explained: “One of the things that has been critical to our efforts in recent times is the creation of great racing circuits. We don’t want another processional race. We want true racing – wheel-to-wheel, livery-to-livery – on street circuits where there is actually the possibility of overtaking. To that end, we have a motorsport and technology division within Formula 1 now and that team has been working hand in glove with the Hanoi government to ensure that the circuit is not only in a world class city, which Hanoi is, but that it is a world class circuit fans will enjoy. One of the things we are currently trying to do is align our races by geography. We are subject to some agreements we have inherited, but ideally, and not necessarily in this order, we would like to have our races in the Asian and Australasian markets grouped, as we would the races in our American and European markets. April in Vietnam supports that vision.” – Formula One’s managing director of commercial operations concluded.
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