Thursday November 11th, 1999

Dubai is negotiating with Bernie Ecclestone to host a Grand Prix race, Reuters reports today. "The goverment is taking care of it and a lot of meetings are going on," Mohammed Bin Sulayem, the United Arab Emirates rally driver who has won 49 international rallies, told Reuters following the UAE Desert Challenge cross country rally. He said talks between Ecclestone and officials from Dubai were being taken "very seriously."

An FIA spokesman said last month that Ecclestone was talking to the Egyptian government about a possible race there and "another Middle East country for the same reasons." Bin Sulayem said his own discussions with Ecclestone had shown that there would be no obstacle to the emirate staging an annual fixture if it could raise the money. "They are studying it to do it right," he said.