The racing facility, which will be the largest of its kind in Asia, will cover 2.5 square kilometers and includes a 5.5-kilometer F1 circuit, stands for 2-million spectators and a maintenance area.

"I believe the 2004 Shanghai Grand Prix will be a success," Max Mosley, president of Formula One's governing body the International Automobile Federation (FIA), said at a ground-breaking ceremony yesterday. "We look forward to holding the F1 championship in the world's most-populous country."

Shanghai announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with FIA to host Formula One championship-series racing from 2004 to 2010, a deal that all but kills the chances of other Chinese city's, such as Beijing and Wuhan, from hosting an F1 event.

"That means other Chinese cities won't have the chances to hold Formula One races until at least 2010," said Yu Zhifei, deputy general manager of the city-backed Shanghai International Circuit Co. Ltd., which is raising money and supervising construction of the track.

China already has a grand prix circuit in the southern city of Zhuhai, which was completed in 1996 but still requires millions of yuan to upgrade to F1 standards. Beijing and Wuhan also say they want to build tracks and vie for Formula One races.

FIA chose Shanghai over other cities because of the city's ability to build a high-quality rack track, its infrastructure and abundant hotel rooms, Mosley said.

Shanghai said it will spend 2 billion yuan (US$240 million) to build the Formula One race car track, which will be shaped like the Chinese character "Shang",the first character in the city's name.

"The circuit will be one of the world's most challenging racing tracks," said Lorenz Schneider, project manager of Germany-based Tilke Co., which designed the master plan for the track.

"We choose the Shang? character shape as it means higher in Chinese," Schneider said. "The circuit will bring higher challenges to the racers."

(eastday.com October 18, 2002)