By Joe Koraith/Doha


Motorsport is a very expensive business. And it is even more so for those in the business of motorsport. The powers that be in Formula 1 and MotoGP are trying to reach out to different countries that are building circuits to woo the promoters. But building a motorsport circuit and sustaining it is not everyone’s cup of tea. And it is in this fiercely competitive world that Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit (SIC) is thriving.
Formula 1 came to the SIC, 17 years ago, but after its initial success, the circuit was slowly turning into a white elephant. In 2009, Sharmila Nadarajah was brought in, then as the Chief Strategy Officer, to turn around the fortunes of the SIC.
From just 40 per cent utilisation of the circuit to almost 100 per cent currently, Sharmila, now Chief Commercial Officer of the SIC, is credited with the circuit’s success.
Gulf Times caught up with her during her visit to Doha for the Qatar Motor Show 2015 and asked her how she managed to do it.
Q: How viable is it to run a motorsport circuit? Or to put it better how does one make it viable?
A: For Sepang International circuit the rights fee is taken care by the government of Malaysia. So the circuit only takes up the operating costs and for that we get the ticket sales and that is more than enough.
The international events are there only three times a year. We did an economic impact study last year to determine whether we should continue F1 or not and the returns are still there in terms of the tourists spending within Malaysia. Plus you can’t beat the fact that F1 has 63 million viewers worldwide and that sort of puts Malaysia on the map. And if you add all that up it’s still about 1:4 returns in terms of our investment.
Q: What about the competition from other circuits in the area like Singapore?
A: Since we started hosting F1, Singapore, Korea and even India came into play. But it hasn’t been a big impact. Thankfully Singapore is in September and we are in March. So you don’t really have to choose which one you want to go to. Singapore is a street circuit and it’s in the night so it is a different experience altogether. We’re like a hot, fast, loud kind of an experience.
Q: So would you say motorsport is a viable business?
A: I wouldn’t say it is profit-making for the rider or the driver. But it is profit-making for us at the circuit. The circuit has been there for 16 years. The team that we have currently running the circuit has been there only for seven years. Prior to that it was a white elephant. It came to a point where the government said that the land value was more as a commercial property or a residential property because they weren’t getting the returns they were expecting. And then we were asked to come up with a turnaround plan. We said that it’s much more than a motorsport circuit. It’s 300 hectares of land here.
It’s not as easy to get business today as it was when we first started out six years ago. I now have to compete with several other players to get the same amount of things. In terms of circuits, safety is the biggest thing. When everyone else is trying to sell the same thing, then it becomes tough. In a way, we have weathered it over the last few years. We would like to be a little bit quiet sometimes but there is really no downtime.