Part Two

'Uniquely Singapore' is the strap-line on the country's tourism website, and that mentality is exactly what the organisers of the first Singapore Grand Prix hope to apply to the Formula One experience when it touches down next September.

Despite being billed as 'the Monaco of the East', the track layout will ensure that Singapore stands apart from F1's most famous event. Just minutes from exclusive five-star hotels, transport links and a vibrant entertainment scene, the circuit promises to be one of the fastest street circuits yet graced by F1 as it will be much wider and feature fewer tight turns than its Mediterranean counterpart. At ten metres, the narrowest and slowest parts of the Singapore track - at the Anderson Bridge and the National Day grandstand - are equivalent to the widest parts of Monaco.

Designed to give the drivers technical challenges and challenge their bravery to the full, the layout passes some of Singapore's most distinctive landmarks, as foreseen in the original plans back in 2005. That first layout has been closely traced by Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Melbourne-based architectural practice responsible for the Adelaide circuit which once hosted the Australian GP, and then expanded to make more of the surroundings.

Incorporating 24 turns of various radii, 14 left and ten right, the circuit includes Raffles Boulevard - complete with 300km/h kink - before the equally high-speed St Andrews Road takes the cars to the Anderson Bridge, a 100-year old feature of the city. Like Monaco, the circuit also features a sea-front section, with the more modern Esplanade Bridge taking the field past contemporary icons such as the Theatres on the Bay and the Singapore Flyer as it runs parallel to Marina Bay.

The layout is designed to have more obvious passing spots than Monaco too, with the end of Raffles Boulevard and the right-hander after Esplanade Bridge already earmarked as candidates for action.

The circuit also restores F1's complement of anti-clockwise venues to three after the demise of Imola, joining Turkey and Brazil as alternatives to the more common clockwise layouts.

In all, 1.2km of new roads are being built to accommodate F1, while a permanent state-of-the art pit building is being erected on the start-finish straight. Impressively, however, the construction work is being completed within a very tight timescale, as the organisers and co-operating government agencies are working to achieve in 18 months what many grands prix take two years to create.

Perhaps the most complex aspect of the entire project, however, is the lighting, which needs to satisfy not only safety criteria for the drivers, but also provide the right conditions for spectators, both at the track and watching, around the world, on television.

To that end, the organisers have contracted Valerio Maioli SpA, an Italian company that brings experience spanning more than 40 years, to install a bespoke lighting system with requirements specific to a street circuit.