Lewis Hamilton said he felt conflicted when he visited India for the Indian Grand Prix and said it was strange because India is a poor country and an F1 track was built in the middle of nowhere.
Lewis Hamilton said he felt conflicted when he visited India for the Indian Grand Prix and said it was strange because India is a poor country and an F1 track was built in the middle of nowhere.
The five-time F1 champion has questioned Formula One's policy of organising races in new countries after this month's announcement of the Vietnam Grand Prix.
According to reports, Hamilton suggested that FIA should target countries that have a racing culture rather than experimenting only to expand their markets.
"On the racing side, I don't know how important it is to go to new countries as such. If you had the Silverstone Grand Prix and a London Grand Prix, it would be pretty cool.
"We've got a lot of real racing history in England, Germany, Italy and now in the States, it is starting to grow," said Hamilton.
Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, will hold a Formula One street race from 2020 after signing a 10-year deal.
F1 has consistently expanded their markets beyond their regular racing countries and now they have regular races in China, South Korea, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, with mixed results.
"But you only have one event per year in those places. If it was my business, I'd be trying to do more events in those countries," Hamilton said.
He added: "I've been to Vietnam before and it is beautiful. I've been to India before to a race which was strange because India was such a poor place yet we had this massive, beautiful grand prix track made in the middle of nowhere. I felt very conflicted when I went to that Grand Prix.
We had a Grand Prix in Turkey and hardly anyone came. Cool track, cool weekend but a poor audience," the Mercedes driver said.
"If you have the German Grand Prix and you've got a Grand Prix in Berlin, I think connecting to cities where a lot of people are is probably a good thing, not necessarily going to countries where they don't know so much about Formula One," the reigning champion said.
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 "Lewis Hamilton")
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