Yun Jin-bo, director general of the F1 Race Preparation & Planning team in South Jeolla, says the F1 Grand Prix is a golden opportunity for both Korea’s motor sport industry and the economy. The following are questions and answers from an interview with him.
Q. Despite being the world’s fifth-largest auto-making country, motor sports are not that popular here compared to other countries. How does the South Jeolla provincial government plan to sell some 130,000 tickets?

A. Although not many know about the sport yet, we have 900,000 so-called domestic “auto racing maniacs.” We intend to sell up to 100,000 tickets to locals and around 30,000 to 40,000 to foreign tourists. The 2002 World Cup in Sangam, western Seoul, had crowds of up to 65,000. Given this past experience, we are not worried about ticket sales.

Some are worried about the distance from the capital Seoul and Incheon International Airport in relation to Yeongam. What are your thoughts?

Both locals and foreigners take four- to five-hour road trips to get to Silverstone in England and Magny-Cours in France for Grand Prix events. The distance seems like a big deal for us Koreans, but it isn’t. We intend to focus on the “fun” part of going back and forth between Yeongam and other tourist attractions across Korea. We are in the middle of developing tourism products such as temple stay programs and cruises along Yeongam’s coast, which is surrounded by dozens of islets.

How does the provincial government commercially take advantage of the city during the non-F1 period?

We plan to develop the city into a motor sport industry cluster on a longer term. We will keep the hat-shaped circuit in the north running more than 200 days of the year by attracting other existing motor events such as A1 Grand Prix, F3 Grand Prix, Kart racing and drag racing. And we hope to create synergy with the local economy through a tourist complex with a yacht yard just next to the circuit.

Source: The JoongAng Daily (October 17, 2009)