The teams must engage more with the sports owners to promote Formula One in new markets, according to FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh.
The Chinese Grand Prix this weekend can hold a capacity crowd of 120,000 on a single day, however attendance in 2010 was just 155,000 over all three days, with the race failing to sell out completely.
This, despite a population of over 22 million in Shanghai.
Whitmarsh believes the teams and CVC, the sports owner, must do more to publicise the event. He argued that very little is being done in places like China and Turkey where attendances are low.
“F1 is used to going to new venues that don’t really understand F1 but we are not good at promoting our sport in new territories,” he is quoted as saying by grandprix.com.
“We have fantastic worldwide TV audiences but we have to work harder at the circuits. You’d struggle to find much promotion in downtown Shanghai and we have to do more.
“It’s a similar story in Istanbul, which is where we go next. Go around Istanbul on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday and tell me how many billboards or advertisements you see.”
He stressed that an improvement must be made immediately if new races, such as that of the United States Grand Prix, are to be a success.
“I think we need to learn that lesson before we go back into the US market [in 2012]. We can’t just plonk ourselves down and believe that America will reignite any enthusiasm for F1. We need to work harder.
“The teams can work together but we also have to engage better with the commercial rights holders and collectively do a better job than we have done in the past.”
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