Korean F1 ambitions crash but hope may be around the bend

Yeongam, South Korea

EIGHT years ago, the South Korean province of South Jeolla, which includes this sleepy coastal county, cleared 1,000 acres of rice paddies and embarked on a US$375 million experiment: building a Formula One racetrack. In 2010, Yeongam hosted the first Korean Grand Prix. New hotels went up to accommodate what local officials hoped would be an unprecedented wave of foreign tourists. The screams of racing machines came to this flat, quiet land, which was more accustomed to the trundle of gigantic ship components on their way to the Hyundai shipyard.

But only three more Grand Prix races followed, and today the quiet has returned. The biggest events now seen at the Korea International Circuit, with its capacity for 120,000 spectators, are amateur races that draw modest crowds.