Ticket sales for Malaysian GP below target

Organizers of next weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix are struggling to sell tickets for the second round of the Formula 1 World Championship at Sepang. Business F1 reports that 40% of tickets have not been sold with only a week to go before track action begins on Friday, 7 April but race director Razlan Razali said, “Malaysians tend to buy their tickets at the last minute. We expect to see increased sales in the last days before the race."

With a number of F1 themed demonstrations and promotions scheduled for this weekend in the country, Razali remains hopeful, “Fans will be able to see F1 cars rolling through the streets. Having seen this, we hope they want to see more and will pay to come see the race. "

He added, “Having the South Korean pop star Rain for our post-race concert also helped us to increase our ticket sales in non-traditional markets like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan or South Korea. It’s even more so because it is the last concert of Rain before taking two years away from show business to his military service in his country . Fans will not want to miss it so."

In 2006 a record of 140,000 spectators attended the three days of Formula 1 at Sepang, the target for the 2011 event is to attract 100,000, including 63,000 on Sunday race day.