{"id":495225,"date":"2025-08-21T07:25:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T11:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=495225"},"modified":"2025-08-21T07:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T11:25:24","slug":"malaysia-sports-minister-denies-formula-1-return-to-sepang-circuit","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/malaysia-sports-minister-denies-formula-1-return-to-sepang-circuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia sports minister denies Formula 1 return to Sepang circuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Malaysia has no plans to bring back Formula 1 to their country due to the soaring costs of hosting and a congested race calendar, Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh confirmed on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Sepang International Circuit hosted a race of the Formula 1 World Championship from 1999 until 2017, but Yeoh said a return is currently out of reach. According to her, hosting the race would require an annual commitment of around $71 million for a period of three to five years \u2014 more than double the government\u2019s total investment in 20 national sports development programs.<\/p>\n<p>Yeoh did not completely close the door on Formula 1\u2019s return. She stressed that Malaysia remains open to hosting the event if private companies are willing to become sponsors. \u201cThe Formula 1 is a prestigious sports event that is followed by fans around the world. So if we could afford it, it would be good to have it in Malaysia,\u201d she said, encouraging interested parties to liaise with the SIC.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Malaysia won\u2019t be bringing back Formula One (F1) races anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh told Parliament that hosting the race costs about RM300mil annually, with a required 3\u20135 year contract totalling around RM1.5bil. She said the funds would be better spent\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8kB5N1zgGg\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/8kB5N1zgGg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Scoop (@Scoopdotmy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Scoopdotmy\/status\/1958481590570676526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Sepang circuit, owned by state energy giant Petronas, continues to host MotoGP and other motorsport events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malaysia has no plans to bring back Formula 1 to their country due to the soaring costs of hosting and a congested race [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":495226,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[17680],"news_category":[16921,16715,14084],"gn_keywords":[26755,1081],"acf":{"news_source":"","link_picture":"","announce":"Hannah Yeoh described hosting F1 Grand prix as 'too expensive'","video":["video"]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/495225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/495225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495227,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/495225\/revisions\/495227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495225"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=495225"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=495225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}