Mat Coch writes:

Work on India's Grand Prix circuit is progressing well, according to JPSK Vice President Mark Hughes. With earth works completed prior to the monsoon season, the circuit looks on schedule to be homologated by the FIA in July 2011 ahead of the first Indian Grand Prix towards the end of the season.

Designed by Herman Tilke, the man responsible for the raft of cookie-cutter style modern circuits, the Jaypee Group, the company involved with the circuit's construction and ultimate race promotion, then engaged current Formula One teams to improve the layout in an attempt to spice up the racing.

"We have worked very closely with Hermann Tilke who came up with the initial design. And we have shared the design with some of the Formula One teams to put it into their simulators," Hughes told the official F1 website, "and they have come back with some recommendations on how to modify it to make it a little more exciting.

"The track itself is not flat, even though the land is very flat. We have moved 4 million cubic tons of earth to give it a lot of undulation. Between Turn One and Turn Three the track goes up by 14 metres and it goes into a blind crest. So we looked at what makes a circuit exciting. Turn Ten is going to be very similar to Turn Eight in Turkey, a very long turn. It's not quite that long, but it is a double-apex corner, slightly banked and it has 13,000 seats around it like an arena."

Promoters anticipate crowds of over 100,000 despite the country having never hosted an international level motor race. "As it is the first race in India we have to go through an education process for the spectators and the ticket buyers. Also we need to explain how a race weekend works. They may have seen qualifying and the race on TV, but they have not yet appreciated that it's a three-day live event with support races," Hughes explains.

"Renault have run a Formula One car in Delhi before. Last year Red Bull ran a car in Mumbai. Both generated a lot of interest, and obviously people follow Force India and Karun (Chandhok), but until you hear a Formula One car for the first time, you don't really appreciate what it's like."

Part of Formula One's expansion into new markets, the Indian Grand Prix will join other new events like Abu Dhabi and Korea, though the latter has been the subject of further speculation in recent days. Scheduled to host the Asian Festival of Speed this month, the event has been delayed until the end of September. Organisers claim the delays were due to bad weather, though with the circuit still to be asphalted and barriers erected the late October Grand Prix date looks doubtful - especially given the fact that the circuit hasn't yet been approved by the FIA.

By contrast the Indian circuit is progressing well, according to Hughes. "We have now appointed 95 percent of the contractors, including the one for the asphalt. We will probably be ready by the end of July next year for the FIA to do the homologation. The plan is to have a race at the end of next season, but we will see where it actually fits in the calendar."