The Shanghai Grand Prix and the future of international sporting events in China

In April 2019, the Shanghai International Circuit hosted the 1,000^th Formula One Grand Prix. Little could drivers and fans have known, that it would be the last F1 race China would see until 2024.

Formula One is back in China for the first time in five years this weekend, the latest in a series of major sporting events to return after the restrictions of the pandemic years. F1 currently has an agreement to hold the Shanghai Grand Prix until 2025.

F1 owners Liberty Media see China as a key future growth market, and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has previously said that a second Grand Prix race in China is “100% realistic”, with Guangdong being the rumoured second destination. Only two other countries have more than one race on this year’s calendar: Italy with two and the US with three.

The popularity of F1 in China has been boosted by the country’s first F1 driver, Zhou Guanyu, who drives for Kick-Sauber’s Stake F1 Team. Nevertheless, F1 is still very much a niche sport in China and Zhou is not yet a household name in his home country. This is something that he hopes to change with the release of a 90-minute documentary “The First One” that tells of his race career so far.

Since the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, China has welcomed back several major international sporting events, including the 19^th Asian Games, the Shanghai Masters snooker tournament (featuring world number one English snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan), and the China Open tennis.

China’s General Administration of Sports has emphasised that sporting events have an important role to play in the country’s economic development, with sporting events in Shanghai alone generating RMB 3.71 billion (£411.6 million) of consumption value in 2023.

Sporting events are also part of the Chinese government’s wider efforts to lure visitors back to the country after the pandemic, which include visa-free travel for citizens of an increasing number of countries and widened access to mobile payment options for foreigners.