The Korea Herald

피터빈트

Incheon to host $1 billion luxury racing center for Asian superrich

By Korea Herald

Published : Feb. 19, 2013 - 20:30

    • Link copied

A luxury racing center, mainly targeting the superrich in Asia, will be established on Yeongjong Island, Incheon, in partnership with the Italian sports car manufacturer Lamborghini and Williams F1, one of the world’s leading Formula One racing teams.

Weingrow Partners, the London-based private investment company overseeing the project, held a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday to announce the global project whose completion is scheduled by 2016.

The company said up to $1 billion could be poured into the whole project, with negotiations still underway to attract strategic partners from luxury and lifestyle industries and other investors. 
Artistic rendering of the planned Lamborghini-Williams 1 racing and lifestyle club (Weingrow Partners) Artistic rendering of the planned Lamborghini-Williams 1 racing and lifestyle club (Weingrow Partners)

The membership club will offer its exclusive members a rare opportunity to race the latest F1 and other road and racing cars provided by Williams 1 and Lamborghini. Other facilities will include advanced driving simulators, a high-tech training center and the nation’s first seven-star hotel.

“The rare combination of a supercar manufacturer and a F1 team is unprecedented and will enable us to provide an extraordinary experience and level of service to clients. We believe Incheon, Korea, is the ideal location of this unique project,” said Akis Stark, managing director of Weingrow.

Yeongjong Island, home to Incheon International Airport, some 70 kilometers west from Seoul, has already hosted BMW Group’s first racing center outside Germany and the United States, with its construction planning to start in March.

According to Weingrow, there are about 73,000 super-car owners in Northeast Asia. The company predicted more than half of the club members would come from China and Japan, while Koreans would make up 10 percent of the total.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)