Osaka mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura has laid down the intentions for the city to host Japan’s first-ever street F1 race in future.
Osaka’s Yumeshima Island will be hosting the six-month long World Expo event in 2025, which is the venue, the city’s mayor Yoshimura wants to stage a street F1 race as well in the future if everything goes well.
Yumeshima is a man-made island with the roads being developed afresh which the mayor reckons will be good enough to stage a F1 race. “We would very much like to realize the Osaka F1 Grand Prix,” said Yoshimura in Expo press conference.
“If we can attract investment from the world, we’ll be able to achieve things we currently can’t realize in Japan. Racing on a street circuit might be achievable at Yumeshima. It would be difficult to use regular asphalt roads.
“We should develop better quality ones.” The operations on Yumeshima Island is aimed to start from 2024 onward, while the Osaka city government is planning to conduct a feasibility study for the grand prix in the next fiscal year, starting from April.
So far, only Fuji and Suzuka has hosted the F1 grand prix events in Japan – both of which are designated race circuits. The country has various other circuits as well which hosts the Super Formula, Super GT, Touring car, F3/F4, etc races.
It remains to be what comes out of it as Liberty Media looks to expand their horizon as Vietnam joins in 2020. Meanwhile, Suzuka already renewed its contract to host the F1 race until the 2021 season with Honda’s backing.
