05/05/2018
NEWS STORY
Formula One may have completed its early season flyaway tour but Red Bull visited South East Asia on Friday, with the team putting on a show for tens of thousands in Ho Chi Minh City at a Heineken festival.
While Bernie Ecclestone admits to rejecting a bid from Vietnam back in 2016, since August last year we have been reporting that F1's new owners, Liberty Media, would be only too happy to take the sport there. Indeed, we understand the deal is as good as done.
And as we await official confirmation of Vietnam's addition to the calendar, the reason for the delay in announcing the move unclear though possibly linked to wanting to confirm Miami first, David Coulthard took to the wheel of the RB7 for F1's first live performance in the country.
The Scot did three runs on the 650m course, laid out on Nguyen Co Thach Street, splitting his efforts between daylight, twilight and a final run under floodlights in the early evening.
A heavy downpour ensured it would be a wet performance, but what the double championship-winning V8 lacked in tyre smoke it more than made up for with ear-splitting noise.
While this was Coulthard's first time in the car for 18 months, the 13-time grand prix winner wasn't holding back: the white-hot glowing brake discs and exhausts told that story.
"It really feels somewhat emotional when you bring a Formula One car to a new country," said the Scot. "In a sport that's been so kind to me, you feel that you're sharing it with a new generation.
"I'm sure the people that were here today and the media coverage this gets will make people tune in and watch Formula One," he added. "That's something which, as a passionate fan of motor racing, makes me very proud. It's my first visit too, and it's great to be in a place that's clearly full of very friendly, educated, enthusiastic people and to be able to let them hear first-hand and see, up close, the engineering art of Formula One.
"You could see the reaction," he added. "This is a very young country in terms of the population demographics but when I went to hand out caps, you could see a real mix of people: young, old, families, all genuinely appreciative of Red Bull bringing the F1 car here. There's no question this sets a standard for future live demo runs."
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