Formula One Shanghai celebrated its debut in the People’s Republic of China on the Shanghai International Circuit in 2004. After Malaysia and Japan, this is the third Formula One track in Asia. Rubens Barrichello of Ferrari won the first race, and Kimi Raikkonen of Mc Laren and Jenson Button of BAR followed him. The lap record of 1:32.238 is held by Michael Schumacher.
German architect Hermann Tilke developed the track on the Chinese character Shang (“above”). The Formula One Shanghai has a track length of 5.451 kilometers. The track with two long straight ways followed by tight curves is a challenging one and requires 56 laps to achieve the Formula One Grand Prix distance of 305 kilometers. The Formula One races begin at 14:00 local time.
The Formula One Shanghai race track was built within 18 months at a cost of 245 million Euros. It has a crowd capacity of 2,00,000 spectators. Shanghai has a F1 contract till the end of 2010. The Shanghai International Circuit is located in the northwestern part of Shanghai in the Jiading District. It is just a one hour drive from the international airport in Pudong. Fans, participants can also easily access it via the many peripherals and outer perimeter highways.
