World Rallycross Championship: Hong Kong organisers to build half-mud, half-tarmac circuit on city’s iconic harbourfront
- The 1km course will take 4 days to build and officials hope it will attract fans to November event
- Season finale expected to cost US$10 million to stage with organisers looking for government support
World Rallycross organisers are planning a half-mud, half-tarmac course in central Hong Kong that will take four days to build for the sport’s season finale in the city later this year.
The 1km track will see cars catapulted around the circuit at speeds faster than Formula One, and officials hope to use the same area that hosted the Formula E race in 2019.
Although the government has yet to sign off on the use of a nearby road for the FIA World Rallycross Championship, promoter Leslie Wong is hopeful the convenient harbourfront location will encourage plenty of fans to attend the “exciting event”.
“We have to transport abundant mud to the area which requires four days non-stop work and hopefully we can use the nearby Lung Wo Road as the tarmac surface so that we can save cost,” he said at Tuesday’s launch for the event. “We still need to talk to the government for assistance for the road usage.
“Not only the venue, we also need the support of the government’s ‘M’ mark event as we are still negotiating with commercial sponsors.”
Wong, whose company has a three-year agreement to host rallycross in China, said putting on the event in November would cost an estimated US$10 million and commercial support would play an important role on top of government funding, which provides organisers of designated events a maximum HK$15 million (US$1.9 million) matching grant.
