SINGAPORE — As Fernando Alonso sipped champagne on the Marina Bay podium, and firework smoke settled into the night sky hovering above Singapore’s capacity-filled street circuit, a bunch of journalists crowded around Bernie Ecclestone in the paddock, eager for his thoughts on what was an historic night for Formula One.
“Could Singapore one day be the jewel in the F1 crown?” posed one reporter.
Ecclestone barely hesitated, before quipping, “why not? It more or less is now.”
Later, he added: “With the street race at night, Singapore is going to be the leader. We anticipate it will quickly establish itself as the most dramatic and atmospheric race on our calendar. [It will] be the best in the world.”
During his reign as Formula One chief, Ecclestone was prone to hyperbole and grandiose claims in an effort to prop up his motor racing empire, but there was some serious truth and inevitability surrounding his remarks following the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix in 2008.
The sport’s first night race, which would be remembered as being one of the most controversial events in modern F1 history, put the tiny Asian transit city on the map. Singapore’s picturesque city skyline and floodlit circuit, illuminated like a Christmas tree, was an instant success among drivers, racegoers and those watching on from living rooms across the globe. It created a buzz and excitement which the sport had seldom seen outside of the famed Monaco Grand Prix, particularly in the lacklustre years following the first of two retirements by all-time great Michael Schumacher.
“It was all anyone could talk about. Not just the week of the race, but for months in the build-up and then afterwards,” restaurateur and Singaporean native, Joseph Soon, tells ESPN. “Singapore had never been put in front of so many people like that before. Those [TV broadcast] views of the city and the track … there was a definite rise in tourists in the months and years [that followed].”
By year two, the Singapore Grand Prix had skyrocketed to the summit of many motor racing fans’ bucket-list, leapfrogging the likes of historic locations, such as Spa, Monza and Silverstone, which were beginning to feel somewhat outdated. Singapore was more than a motor race; it was a spectacle, one which attracted music, film and sports stars from all over the planet. It was fresh. It was glitzy and glamourous. And it felt…
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