F1 racing club for Asia's mega rich
Williams and Lamborghini are joining forces to launch the world's first racing club for the super-rich in South Korea, writes Andrew Salmon
Are Asia's newest super-rich willing to ditch their weekend golf games in favour of thrashing supercars around a racetrack at a purpose-built resort on an island in the Yellow Sea? That is the bet being made by Weingrow, an investment firm with offices in London's New Bond Street and Seoul's Gangnam district, and its partners, Britain's Williams and Italy's Automobili Lamborghini.
Weingrow's managing director, Akis Stark, announced last month in Seoul that a memorandum of understanding had been signed with the city of Incheon, in South Korea, to launch the world's first racing and lifestyle club.
At a cost of "under US$1 billion", Stark, an Anglo-Greek entrepreneur, envisages a resort, informally dubbed "the Superclub", on a reclaimed island off Incheon by 2016. It will consist of a 220-room "seven-star" hotel - Stark declined to confirm that US fashion king Ralph Lauren will design it - around a five kilometre, Formula One-class racetrack.
There will be a stable of Williams Formula One cars and Lamborghini supercars, serviced by resident mechanics, and trainers coaching to develop the physical and mental skills needed for racing. A racing simulator will also deliver 4Gs of acceleration force.
"With the advanced engineering of Williams, the passion of the Italians and the chic of Korea, it will be a super project," says Alex Burns, Williams' CEO.
For the European firms, geo-economics is the lure. Incheon, a gritty port serving Seoul, is far from "chic", but it is home to Incheon International Airport - seven times voted the world's best airport - and is situated between the world's second- and third-largest economies, China and Japan.
