A Dream Comes True

A dream that began ten years ago with a group of young businessmen has become a reality with the support of the Turkish government and the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ICOC). Formula 1, which each year attracts thousands of spectators and one and a half billion television viewers worldwide, will have a new home in Istanbul in August of 2005.

To make this possible, ICOC and the ICOC Education and Social Services Foundation established a company with an investment of almost US$ 7.5 million. Ground was broken for the US$ 300 million venue on September 10, 2003 . With the venue, which will have 20,000 fixed seats and a grandstand for 40,000, scheduled to be completed on March 31, 2005, the Formula 1 organization will have a total of 30 F-1 racetracks worldwide.

This development is of historic importance for Turkey 's image and publicity, and in August of 2005, thanks to this event, Istanbul will host as many as 20-30,000 visitors. And due to the extensive publicity surrounding Formula 1, it is foreseen that annual visitors to Turkey will rise by 3 million. In 2003, two million F-1 spectators at 11 races spent around US$ 500 million. To put it another way, hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues will benefit just as much from Formula 1 as will the automotive, spare parts and repair sectors.

For their ceaseless efforts to bring this incredible opportunity to Turkey , and for their success in doing so, we'd like to thank the Turkish Automobile and Motorsports Federation and the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce. We believe that they will make the most of this historic opportunity and that the Istanbul Grand Prix has a very successful future ahead of it.