MARCH 9, 2007

Asia comes to Melbourne

Our spies in Australia tell us that the Australian Grand Prix will have a lot of important visitors this year with a major delegation expected from Singapore, including S Iswaran, the Minister of State for Trade and Industry, who is responsible for tourism in the country. The other members of the delegation include staff from all the various departments that would be involved if there was a street race in the city, including the police and the transport authority. They will be in town studying how Melbourne organises its Grand Prix.

In addition Yung Cho Chung, the chief executive of the Korea Auto Valley Operation, the man who will be the promoter of the Korean GP in 2010, will be taking a look at the way Melbourne runs its operations.

In addition to that the Chinese are sending Wang Liqun, who is now the man in charge of running F1 operations in China. He will be accompanied by a group from the Shanghai Jiu Shi Corporation, a government-owned construction company which owns the rights to the race.

It must be nice for the Australians to know that the rest of the world heads for Melbourne when they want advice about F1.