KL City Grand Prix to hit the streets in Aug 2015
Kuala Lumpur will be playing host to three days of GT street racing next year, with the inaugural KL City Grand Prix set to take place from 7 to 9 August 2015. Organized by GT Global Race (M) Sdn Bhd, the event is backed by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (city hall) and it will run on a 3.2km circuit lapping the main streets around the KLCC area.
Slated to be the first ever world-class automotive racing event to be staged on the streets of KL, the KL City Grand Prix will also be accompanied concerts, cultural and food village, plus a series of other supporting events to build on the mega carnival atmosphere which the organizers are hoping to generate. The KL City Grand Prix Festival Week is scheduled to start on 1 Aug lasting all the way to the final day of the event at 9 Aug.
Legs of three international race series have been confirmed thus far for next year’s event, namely the Lamborghini Super Trofeo, Formula Masters, and the Volkswagen Scirocco Celebrity Challenge. The races will flag off at Suria KLCC proceeding on a counter-clockwise loop through Jalan P. Ramlee, Jalan Ampang, Jalan Sultan Ismail, and Jalan Pinang.
Seeking to qualify its claim of the KL City Grand Prix as a world class event, GT Global Race has engaged help from the Automobile Association of Malaysia (AAM) to assist with race organization and track homologation in order to comply with regulations of the international governing body of racing, the FIA. Additionally, GT Global Race has also secured exclusive rights from the city hall to organize the event for the next five years.
According to YAM Tunku Naquiyuddin ibni Tuanku Ja’afar, Chairman of GT Global Race, an independent study by global business advisory consultant firm Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) predicts that the KL City Grand Prix can potentially draw 100,000 tourists to the city, with further growth projected to 150,000 tourists by the event’s sixth year in 2020.
He further elaborated that an additional 6,300 job opportunities will be created by the inaugural edition of the event next year, going up to 10,000 jobs by 2020. The study also estimates that associated activities of the race would inject over RM750 million of cash flow into the economy, rising to RM1.2 billion in 2020.
