This weekend, Formula 1 returns to Sepang for the first time since 2017, but only as a stand-in for a race Bahrain could not host at home.
It has revived a question that has lingered for nearly a decade: why did Malaysia actually leave the calendar, and why has it never come back?
The official explanation at the time was cost.
Malaysia’s government had grown unwilling to keep paying rights fees that dwarfed the race’s local ticket revenue.
Razlan Razali, Sepang International Circuit’s Chief Executive Officer at the time, was the man who put that recommendation to the government directly.
“Just like any Malaysians who are big Formula 1 fans, yes, we are very excited to see the return of Formula 1 since 2017, although I was the person responsible in advising the Prime Minister then to stop Formula 1 for obvious reasons,” Razali told Sector.
“I did say that we should reconsider F1 after five years, so now it has been nine years. Formula 1 in 2017 is very much different to what it is today.
“It really picked up during or just before COVID with Drive to Survive, and I think that changes the ballgame for Formula 1. There are new fans, younger fans, more female fans who watch Drive to Survive on Netflix and not be able to see it live in their country.”
That account lines up with the wider read from the motorsport community.
Matthew Marsh, a Singapore-based motorsport commercial consultant who spent eight years at Zak Brown’s sponsorship agency JMI and two decades on F1’s broadcast in Asia, believes it was not about one single cause but more about a country whose original ambitions had already been met.
“There was no single reason Malaysia stepped away. The context had changed,” Marsh told Sector.
“When Sepang was planned in the mid-1990s, Southeast Asia was the region everyone was watching, Malaysia was at the front of it, and a place on the Formula 1 calendar was the ideal way to build the country’s reputation and bring in investment. By 2017 much of that ambition had been realised.”
The competitive landscape around Sepang had also shifted dramatically since Malaysia’s debut in 1999.
For the final two years Sepang followed Singapore by a fortnight. And Singapore was the race, anywhere in the world, that everyone wanted to attend. It could not have been worse.
Matthew Marsh
“In 1999 Malaysia was only the second race in Asia, after Japan, and the only one in Southeast Asia,” Marsh said.
“By 2017 there were 20 races, the calendar was clearly going to keep growing, and Singapore had arrived next door.
“For the final two years Sepang followed Singapore by a fortnight. And Singapore was the race, anywhere in the world, that everyone wanted to attend. It could not have been worse.”
Beyond the competitive landscape, Marsh also ties the exit to the fading of the political project that built Sepang in the first place.
The circuit was commissioned under Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister but, by 2017, in Marsh’s view, the political energy behind that original vision had faded along with public appetite for the race itself.
“Sepang was a Mahathir project,” Marsh said.
“He was Prime Minister for 22 years, and Malaysians call him the Father of Modernisation. By 2017 the country, the government and the mood had all moved on, and nothing is as exciting the 18th time as the first.”
Marsh is also sceptical that cost was ever really the deciding factor, rather than the easiest one to say publicly.
Challenges from other venues in the region pointed, Marsh claims, to the claims of over-paying for the race fell wide of the mark.
“I wish the decision-makers had simply said the job was done, that the objectives had been met, the contract was ending, and it was a natural moment to stop,” Marsh said.
“Instead they seemed to reach for excuses. Declining interest was one of them but cost was the loudest, and I always thought that meant, really, that Malaysia felt it could not derive value from the platform.
“Just in Asia there’s Thailand, Korea, India, and Osaka wanting Suzuka’s place. None of them is complaining that F1 costs too much.”
Razali has often spoken of the same underlying economics behind his advice to the Prime Minister – a rights fee that had outgrown what Sepang’s ticket sales could support, at a point when Malaysia had little left to gain from proving the concept twice over.
Marsh treats the attendance figures from that final year with some caution, too.
He suspects the 110,000-plus crowd recorded for the farewell race in 2017 reflected the novelty of a last chance to attend rather than genuine demand, and that the true baseline was closer to the roughly 45,000 he estimates turned up for the penultimate edition, at a venue built to hold 120,000.
There could be further weight in that argument as ticket sales for the reorganised Bahrain race are expected to reach six-figures.
For Marsh, though, attendance was never the figure that mattered most.
“Attendance is the wrong yardstick,” Marsh added.
“Set ticket revenue against the hosting fee and the cost of staging the event, and it barely registers.
“What a country like Malaysia gets is international standing, and after 18 races it had achieved that.”
That question of whether the investment still makes sense is a live one again this week, given how little notice Sepang has had to prepare.
Razali is candid about just how compressed the turnaround for this year’s one-off has been, and what it means for any longer-term ambitions built on the back of it.
The question is whether two months is enough for Malaysia to really optimise that weekend to give it a strong base for Malaysia to discuss whether there is a future beyond this year for the next five years.
Razlan Razali
“This is the first time that the circuit is preparing the track, everything from the track to facilities, in a short period of time,” Razali told Sector.
“The question is whether two months is enough for Malaysia to really optimise that weekend to give it a strong base for Malaysia to discuss whether there is a future beyond this year for the next five years.”
Marsh is far less convinced a longer-term return is realistic, whatever appetite Razali still carries for one.
The economics that mattered in 2017, he argues, have only become more demanding since.
“I see no realistic path back,” Marsh said.
“F1’s audience is more than 60 per cent bigger than when Malaysia left, and far broader, more valuable.
“But I see no appetite in Malaysia to use the race the way it must be used to justify the money. I do not think it is an ambition the government holds. And nor am I saying it should.”
Even setting aside Malaysia’s own appetite, Marsh believes F1 itself would likely look elsewhere first if a genuine vacancy opened up.
A returning market carries less strategic value to the sport than a new one, however fondly Sepang is remembered by those who already follow it.
“Even if Malaysia wanted it, I expect F1 would think strategically about any vacant slot,” Marsh said.
“Thailand, Korea or India would each be new and would win fresh fans. A race in India could transform the sport’s audience there.
“Sepang would be a welcome return for fans of the sporting side of F1, but it is not a new market.”
That distinction, between a strategic opportunity and a sentimental one, is exactly what makes this week’s booking different in Marsh’s eyes. Nobody is pretending it is the first step toward a new long-term contract.
“This year’s race is a logistics favour,” Marsh said.
“I don’t think it’s a huge benefit but certainly good for Malaysia. The reaction has been universally warm: fans calling Sepang a great track, people booking flights to Kuala Lumpur, others wishing they could go.
“They remember the racing, the city, even the airport. That goodwill has commercial value, and Malaysia should enjoy hearing it.”
Nine years after leaving the calendar in search of an economic case that no longer added up, Sepang’s brief return may be the closest thing to vindication it gets, without ever needing to be a long-term one.
