Igh demand for tickets as Malaysian is shifted to ctober

KUALA LUMPUR: Tickets have been selling like hot cakes since the Petronas Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix has been rescheduled from March to October.

The Malaysian Grand Prix was one of the few races that had been moved to new dates in the International Automobile Federation (FIA) calendar shake-up for this year.

The Malaysian leg, often the second race of the year, has been moved for the first time since 2001 from March to Sept 30-Oct 2 and is now the 16th race in the 21-race calendar.

It’s now sandwiched between the Singapore Grand Prix (Sept 18) and Japanese Grand Prix (Oct 9).

“This year’s race falls within a very unique time frame – just two weeks after the Singapore Grand Prix and less than a month before Malaysia host the MotoGP,” said SIC chief executive officer Datuk Razlan Razali at the Malaysian Grand Prix launch here yesterday.

The surge in demand for tickets has led Razlan to believe that they can achieve their overall spectator target of 85,000 over three days – which will be a 5% increase from last year’s total when the race was held in March.

“There’s a surge in agent sales in the top 10 countries – Australia, United Kingdom, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Japan, Thailand, United States, Sweden and Finland ... which are our international spectators are mostly from,” said Razlan.

“To date, we have hit a 272% increase in sales from the top 10 countries compared to last year.

“To date, we have hit a 272% increase in ticket sales from the top 10 countries compared to last year.

“This will undoubtedly be a boon for tourism ... and can contribute to the Ministry of Tourism’s target of 30.5mil tourist arrivals.”