Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One a high-speed formula for excess

THE Korean Grand Prix, held in a wasteland and with losses exceeding $100 million in the past two years, symbolises Formula One's absurd operation.

Korea Formula One

THE first job will be to check the fridge. That will be one measure of the weekend's biggest global sporting event: curled up, mouldy sandwiches on a tray left undisturbed for a year.

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One's chief executive, was presumably of sound mind when he signed a deal that would take the Korean Grand Prix to the metropolis of Mokpo, but then he does not have to stay in the Adam and Eve Love Motel.

Or get rid of the mouldy sandwiches.

The trains and planes will be full of Formula One personnel today, heading for a grand prix ghost town. Welcome to Mokpo - and, as far as almost everyone in the sport is concerned, you are welcome to it.

That is not to denigrate the good folk of Mokpo, who are surely a steadfast, hardworking people living in a perfectly pleasant city. But it is not a grand prix destination.

After three years, Formula One is now fully prepared, which is why drivers, teams and associated hangers-on were in Tokyo or Seoul, delaying the moment before they were forced to travel to the next destination on the calendar. They know what is coming.

Last season, it seemed that the circuit gates had been unlocked for the first time since the grand prix had left after the first Korean Grand Prix, in 2010.

When one team checked the fridges in the hospitality unit kitchens, the sandwiches left a year earlier were still there. Bunches of wilted flowers were still in their vases, cobwebs and dust everywhere.

It was a circuit that had been in a state of suspended animation for 12 months, a huge and costly folly on the outskirts of a city that neither cares nor wants a grand prix.

But the sheets will be turned down at the Adam and Eve Motel, one of the many "love" hotels where people will be billeted. Suffice to say that the welcome pack was toothbrush, condoms and lubricating cream and the biggest feature of the room was a widescreen television with, let's say, adult viewing in plentiful supply.

There is no vote for the worst location in the sport, but Mokpo would be a strong contender, even over riot-ravaged Bahrain, or Brazil, where crime is rife. At least in Sao Paulo, the food is good, the nightlife is entertaining and the fans as enthusiastic as any in the world. In Mokpo, there is food, there must be a fan out there somewhere and, well, there are the love motels.

The Korean Grand Prix is a sporting event that will be watched in Milton Keynes and Munich but remains a mystery in Mokpo.

Yet South Korea is a nation that knows how to do sport: the 1988 Summer Olympics were held successfully in Seoul, the capital, and the country was joint host of the 2002 football World Cup.

Seoul is a bustling, thrilling city of 10 million people that would make a fantastic venue for a grand prix; Mokpo is a bleak seaport of 245,000 souls, who have had a grand prix thrust upon them.

If ever there was a beacon for the absurdity of Formula One's business plan, it is on the swampland edging the Yellow Sea that is the Yeongam circuit.

Mokpo is not alone. Ecclestone is often described as the sport's ringmaster, yet he seems to be filling his circus with white elephants: the Turkish Grand Prix came and went; China is grand, but Shangai appears uninterested; Bahrain is riven with strife; Malaysia goes on but barely attracts local spectators, and Mokpo is - well, Mokpo.

Ambition appears to override common sense when it comes to the pinnacle of motor sport, as well as the desire to rake in the cash for the group of investors who control the sport.

F1's business case is becoming increasingly reliant on governments prepared to underwrite the cost of a grand prix, which is not a problem in Bahrain or Abu Dhabi, China or Malaysia.

But it hurts in Australia, where the taxpayers of Melbourne are running out of patience with a government paying huge race fees and structural costs to stage the race. Losses this year will be 35 million pounds.

France has bailed out of trying to resurrect a grand prix suspended in 2008 because of the cost, while Spain has lost Valencia as a venue and the Nurburgring, in Germany, is in the grip of a financial crisis.

Ecclestone's mission has been to spread Formula One far and wide - or to take the money from whichever potentate or investor promises to pay a fee averaging almost pounds 19 million pounds simply to stage the race. Circuits get no rights to track advertising or corporate entertaining, just the gate receipts.

The result has been higher ticket prices and dwindling attendances, except at die-hard venues such as Silverstone, which somehow got 120,000 people through the doors in July for the British Grand Prix despite dreadful weather.

Even on those spectator numbers, Silverstone will likely make a loss of about 4 million pounds on this year's race.

The other result is grands prix where the team personnel appear to outnumber the spectators - Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia, for example. And Mokpo.

Mokpo is the easiest of targets, a port about four hours from Seoul. Only the hardiest Western traveller would arrive there and the locals have no genuine interest or knowledge of the sport that is about to invade their city.

The circuit lost 40 million pounds in its first year of the grand prix, 33 million pounds last year and is on course for a deficit of 17 million pounds at the weekend.

At least the figures are going in the right direction. Two big-name sponsors have withdrawn and the original head of the organising committee has been fired and is embroiled in a legal action.

It is depressing for the hundreds of team personnel who will be setting up the Formula One circus in Mokpo today.

The least surprising news is that flights and train seats out of Mokpo are fully booked for Sunday night, hours after the Korean Grand Prix.

The Times