The Chinese Formula One Grand Prix, an annual fixture on Shanghai's sports calendar since 2004, may be just one more race in the high-octane world of motor sport. But in seven short years it has also earned an extraordinary reputation for political and legal peril, with all three of its founding patrons ending up in jail.
Chen Liangyu , the former Shanghai party boss who, almost singlehandedly, introduced the extravaganza to the city in 2004, was later jailed for 18 years for doling out business favours in exchange for bribes. However, on the mainland, where using corruption charges to purge adversaries is the recipe for political dominance, it is believed that Chen's fall from grace had more to do with political infighting at the top of the Communist Party than any wrongdoing on his part.
Less than three months after Chen's downfall in 2006, Yu Zhifei, the general manager of Shanghai International Circuit, the promoter of the Shanghai GP, was detained. Yu, the public face of the GP from the very start and a Chen protege, has been in custody ever since, with a court jailing him for four years in 2008 for using company money to buy a 1 million yuan (HK$1.37 million) flat at a discount.
Perhaps the most convincing legal case against a GP patron involved Chen Tonghai , a former general manager of state-owned oil firm Sinopec Corp. He received a suspended death sentence after being convicted in a 190 million yuan corruption case. Sinopec's five-year, 800 million yuan, title sponsorship deal for the GP played a key part in securing the race for Shanghai.
The authorities have never indicated that the three men's troubles were interconnected, despite persistent rumours to that effect.
This year's GP, taking place in three weeks' time, could possibly be the last, thanks to the impending expiry of the city's seven-year hosting contract. Shanghai leaders are considering whether to get rid of the ominous - and expensive - event, arguably the biggest tangible legacy of an era the city is eager to leave behind.
But the country's business capital has found itself between a rock and a hard place over its F1 prospects. On the one hand, officials frown on the lack, if not downright absence, of economic sense in extending their commitment to the race and are keen to pull the city government out of the money pit. On the other hand, the financial consequences of scrapping the race are equally daunting.
