€20m race-track to be built at Ħal Far, Prime Minister Robert Abela says

A race-track of international standards will be built at Ħal Far, Prime Minister Robert Abela announced yesterday.

He was speaking at the start of a Cabinet meeting which was held at the Ta’ Qali basketball pavilion. The meeting discussed Malta’s strategy for sports.

Abela said that €20 million will be invested in the project. “We want to go for something professional, without causing inconvenience to residents. The track will be built in Ħal Far, in a zone which is already used for such sport,” he said.

No ODZ land will be taken up by the project, he said, adding that the government had discarded plans that were drawn up years ago and which would have taken up more land and been in closer vicinity to residential areas.

Discussions also involved the impact of the noise generated by the track, and mitigating efforts will be in place, he said.

A plan of the race-track was uploaded on Facebook by Parliamentary Secretary for Sport, Clifton Grima.

Grima said that motorsport that already takes place in Malta, such as drag racing and karting, will be improved, while the circuit will be built close to already-existing facilities, which will be upgraded.

Duncan Micallef, President of the Malta Motorsport Federation, welcomed the news. He said in a video on Facebook, that the past seven months have seen intensive work to bring motorsport to its best possible level. He said the circuit will be of around 2km, and will be homologated up to Formula 3 or GT3.

Speaking later in the day, Micallef said the plans for the three race tracks – circuit training, drag racing and karting – have already been submitted with the planning authority. If the project is completed by next year, something which he said is doable, Malta could be in a position to host the FIA Drag Racing Championship in 2023.

The idea of the creation of a motorsport track has long been promised.

In its 2013 electoral manifesto, the Labour Party had pledged to identify a site for the development of a motorsports track. In its 2017 manifesto, the Labour Party said: “after the necessary studies took place, a call will be issued so that our country will have a car racing track. The zone identified in which this racetrack should be built is in Ta’ Qali, and it is to be built without recreational or natural space being lost.”

The government seems to have now dropped the idea of having such a track in Ta’ Qali, and gone for the Ħal Far option.

Back in 2018, Structural engineering firm Periti Studio had taken the initiative to design a concept proposal for a race track in Ħal Far. However, hopes for that track were later dashed as the land was earmarked for industrial purposes. The design and precise location of the government proposed track is slightly different than that which had been proposed in 2018.