Even sponsors, teams and the federation in Paris which runs the races are not likely to see it as a loss.
The report quoted Mark Thomas, founder and managing director of the sporting event organiser and consultancy S2M Group, as saying that both teams and sponsors saw Malaysia as one of racing’s less popular locations.
One reason was that they were somewhat put off by the heat and rains here.
The report also said Malaysians had found the Sepang circuit inaccessible and preferred Grand Prix motorcycle racing.
Thomas was quoted as saying: “The theory goes F1 will promote a country or city on the global stage by increasing awareness via its massively potent TV platform.
“This should in turn help the brand awareness of a country which should help their respective economies. However, this may be difficult to quantify and given F1’s relative lack of popularity across the region and huge cost, it is sometimes difficult to justify.”
Tourism Minister Nazri Aziz had last November been reported as saying that the races had become too expensive to host.
He said F1 attendance was dropping and it was less attractive now.
He said the country was spending RM300 million a year but it had not been able to recoup the money spent on hosting the event. Ticket sales have been declining and Malaysia has not produced quality F1 drivers in all the years that it has hosted the race.
The Forbes report quoted Trinh Nguyen, the Asia-based senior economist with French investment bank Natixis, as saying: “I think this simply reflects the cost and benefit analysis and not necessarily about politics.
“When revenue is less than cost, then the decision to not keep the race in Malaysia is really just about the fact that it is no longer economical for the country to do so. We don’t think it will have a significant impact on the country’s performance.”
Japan and South Korea have also stopped hosting car races because of the cost factor. Singapore is the only nation in the region that will be hosting such races after 2018.