Low Flyer Fernando Alonso, the 27-year-old Spaniard, sneaked from behind to claimed his first victory of 2008 FI Singtel Singapore Grand Prix in his Renault Car. The race which cars go around 61 times on the Singapore Public Road Circuit, thrilled a sell-out crowd of 100,000 at the Marina Bay street circuit for about 2 hours. Alonso came from a lowly 15th on the starting grid. German driver Nico Rosberg is second place for Team Williams-Toyota. Team McLaren-Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton extend his World Championship lead to seven points after finishing in third place. Team McLaren-Mercedes boss Martin Whitmarsh said "But we've seen Monaco evolve over many years and I can see the Singapore Grand Prix becoming our Monaco of the East".
On the other side of the fence: The race disrupted traffic and costed taxpayers millions of dollars but Singapore hopes the blitz will give businesses a much-needed boost and help the city state promote itself as a financial hub in Asia. The Singapore government is reportedly shouldering around 60% of the USD 100 million annual cost for hosting the event for the next five years. And in the days leading up it there were reports of hotels slashing rates amid sluggish demand, and of unused tickets changing hands for less than their face value. And, to top it off, the threat of global recession may well be enough to keep tourists and residents from parting with too much cash after the noise and loud noise of the cars die down.
Singapore is all Deck Out
Lights poles are up, fences held in place, crash bearer bolted down and colourful spectators chairs are deck out... Singapore is ready for the first F1 night race. F1 fans are delighted that and are waiting impatiently for the day. But common folks in Singapore are bracing themselves for massive traffic jams and lots of pedestrian barriers during the weeks running up to the 29 September 2008.
928 is the Day
Yes! "Kow Yee Fatt" or September 28 in Cantonese (an auspicious number), will be the day F1 GP is coming to Singapore. The Singapore Grand Prix will be F1's first night race and the 15th stop of 2008's 18-leg season. Hotels around the proposed circuit like Swissotel-The Stamford and Pan Pacific Singapore have started to get room bookings. This is despite the Government's will be adding a special F1 Cess Tax of 30 per cent to defray the cost of staging the expensive F1 event.
Bacause of the strict laws banning tobacco advertisements in Singapore the publication or display of any acknowledgement of sponsorship of a tobacco company would, as a general rule, be prohibited.
Come for a one lap ride with Winner of 2008 SGP, Fernando Alonso.
