Organisers of the Malaysian Grand Prix have announced that next year’s race will start an hour earlier after this year’s event was washed out.
The start time for this year’s race, held at Sepang in April, had been put back to 5pm local time in an effort to attract a larger television audience in Europe.
However, the late start brought chaos as heavy rain resulted in the race being red-flagged after 32 laps. SkySports
Race winner Jenson Button and the other top-eight finishers were awarded half-points.
The news of the 4pm start for 2010 was met with approval by the head of the race circuit who had, however, hoped for an even earlier start.
“Of course, it would have been even better if we stuck to the time we’ve always had,” Sepang International Circuit CEO Razlan Razali said. Yahoo! Eurosport
“Bernie and I agreed in April we should move our race to 4pm,” he said.
“We are not keen on a night race, but we now have a good compromise and are happy it won’t start later.”
Meanwhile, Ecclestone said that while it had probably got the 2009 Malaysian GP start time wrong, he would continue to push for Asian races to start at times more sociable for the core European TV audience.
“With Australia we had a twilight race, so it was in Malaysia, but maybe we went a little late there and managed to find a good way to catch the rain.
“But I think in general that is what we will be doing now, it is good for the promoters and the events to have it in the evening rather than during the day.” ITV
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