A modern-day classic. That’s how former McLaren driver David Coulthard describes the Singapore Grand Prix, and he can’t be wrong, right? The race was an immediate hit when it was included on the Formula 1 calendar in 2008, and the novelty of racing after dark never grows old.

But the Singapore Grand Prix is much older than most people think. It’s a classic in its own right, with the notorious Upper Thomson Road circuit staging non-championship rounds between 1966-1973. 

Danger road

“Thomson Road was the most dangerous track I’d ever driven on,” says Kiwi Graeme Lawrence, a three-time winner of the Singapore Grand Prix in the late ’60s and early ’70s. “There were lots of things you didn’t want to hit, but that was part of the challenge.”

The clue was in the corner names. The fast sweeping bends midway through the lap were ‘The Snakes’, primarily down to their shape, but spitting cobras were often spotted there as well, and the tricky V-shaped hairpin towards the end of the 4.865km/3.023-mile lap? ‘Devil’s Bend’. Get it wrong and you were heading into the rainforest, or the reservoir. 

There’s no reservoir near today’s Marina Bay Street Circuit, only the sea. Modern safety standards ensure the cars can’t get anywhere near it, but they pass over the famous Anderson Bridge midway through the lap and look over the mouth of the Singapore River. Modern corner names are mostly numbers, with Turn 10 capturing the mood of the night race best: the Singapore Sling.

While Marina Bay is a good challenge for the cars and drivers, it’s a very different test to what came before. Thomson Road was clockwise, narrow (just three metres wide in places), and it had little in the way of run-off or barriers. Hay bales were placed in front of roadside food stalls “to protect the buildings”, according to local newspaper reports, and there was no Armco barrier.

But none of these dangers affected the popularity of the original Singapore Grand Prix. For more than a decade it was the biggest motor race in south east Asia, with full grids and more than 60,000 people lining the track, each spectator paying 1 ringgit to enter (about 20p). In the latter years of the race, TV highlights were broadcast in Australia and New Zealand when an increasing number of Antipodean drivers were on the entry list.

It was from these small acorns of racing exuberance that today’s Singapore Grand Prix was born. Thomson Road whetted the appetite of motoring-mad Singaporeans and government feasibility studies about the construction of a permanent facility were carried out long after Thomson Road was closed in 1973 due to safety concerns.

Changi airbase, now one of the biggest international hubs in the world, was proposed as a permanent venue. The airfield’s perimeter road had staged a one-off Forces Motoring Club event in 1957, but by the ’70s it was too big an airport to co-exist as a racetrack and the city-state had to wait 35 years for the Singapore Grand Prix to return.

But memories of Thomson Road circuit continue to burn bright, thanks to celebrations every Easter, when former racers meet up and lap the circuit in period cars and bikes.

McLaren wins

Thereafter, only single-seaters took the spoils, something that McLaren managed in 1969 with its M4A F2 car with Kiwi Graeme Lawrence behind the wheel. How apt, then, that McLaren should win the Singapore Grand Prix 40 years later, with Lewis Hamilton in 2009.

“My Singapore wins are right up there with the best of my career,” says Graeme Lawrence of his ’69 success. “Thomson Road was a track on which you needed total commitment, yet also control, and the F2 cars of the day had everything you needed. I enjoyed racing there and had some good battles.”

Generous prize money from the Singapore Government ensured many leading drivers made the trip to Singapore after contesting the Tasman Series in New Zealand.

Australians Garrie Cooper and Max Stewart won at Thomson Road using F2 cars that were being shipped from NZ to Europe for the racing season. Graeme Lawrence was an up-and-coming driver, who went on to try his hand in Europe using prize money obtained in Singapore to get competitive cars. But of the 13 Singapore Grand Prix winners, only Vern Schuppan made it to Formula 1. And, as it happens, he went on to enjoy success with McLaren when he finished third in the 1981 Indianapolis 500.

“I liked the Thomson Road circuit,” says Schuppan. “Sure, there were lots of things you didn’t want to hit, but that’s no different to Macau or Monaco. It was a good meeting and I was at a stage in my career when I just wanted to race. Anything! Anywhere!”

After the Thomson Road circuit was closed and no replacement venue was found, racing stopped in Singapore. F1 then came to the Malay peninsula in 1999, at Sepang, and to justify two grands prix 80 miles apart, Singapore needed to come up with a unique concept to attract the attention of then-F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. Which is when the idea of a night race was first mooted.

It was an inspired move, but it didn’t make the Singapore Grand Prix a modern-day classic; it was already a classic.

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