New Grand Prix circuit planned for Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) –

The cars line up for the Malaysian Grand Prix at Malaysia’s Sepang circuit in March. A second Formula One-standard circuit will be built in Malaysia and will include a driving school aimed at nurturing regional racing talent, developers of the project said.

A second Formula One-standard circuit will be built in Malaysia and will include a driving school aimed at nurturing regional racing talent, developers of the project said.

The track in southern Malaysia is being built by Singapore billionaire investor Peter Lim, a director of UK-based sports car maker McLaren Automotive, whose sister company McLaren Racing competes in F1.

Malaysia already has a grand prix track at Sepang outside the capital Kuala Lumpur, which has hosted 14 F1 races since first being included in the racing calendar in 1999.

The developers of the new track mentioned no plans to become part of the F1 calendar.

The planned 4.5-kilometre (2.8-mile) test track is part of a $1.2 billion Motorsport City in the Iskandar development zone in the southern state of Johor, UEM Land Holdings said in a statement sent to AFP Wednesday.

The Malaysian developer holds a 30 percent share in the joint project, with Lim’s FASTrack Autosports owning the rest.

The 109-hectare development will include an advanced driving school targeting regional racing talents and a 1.5-km go-kart circuit.

“The region is fast becoming a hub for motor sports,” Lim said in the statement, while UEM called the track the “Nurburgring of Iskandar Malaysia”, a reference to the famed circuit in Nurburg, Germany.

Singapore, which is just over Malaysia’s southern border from Johor, hosts F1′s only night race.