Marina Bay and the Hawker Center

Singapore has raced through the streets of Marina Bay since 2008, and its food culture lives in hawker centers where Chinese, Malay and Indian cooking share one roof.

The Singapore Grand Prix joined the World Championship in 2008 and has been held on the Marina Bay Street Circuit ever since. Our records count 16 editions from 2008 to 2025; the 2020 race was cancelled and the event returned in 2022. The 2026 race is on the calendar for October 11, as round 17.

No Singaporean driver or team appears in our records. The city's contribution to the sport is the race itself, run through the streets of a port that has long ranked among the great crossroads of world trade.

Singaporean cooking grew from the communities that made the city: Malay and Indonesian, Chinese and Indian, along with Peranakan cooking and the Eurasian Kristang tradition with its English and Portuguese roots. Many of today's staples, fish head curry, kaya toast and Hainanese chicken rice among them, were born as immigrants adapted home recipes to local ingredients and tastes. Food is treated as part of the national identity, and diners from different communities often share a table, choosing dishes everyone sitting at it can enjoy, which may be the most civilized way to order dinner yet devised.

Most of that eating happens at hawker centers, large halls of small stalls that each specialize in a few dishes, and hawker culture has been recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Seafood is a particular strength, and the noodle stalls alone could fill a week. For a Singapore race weekend, a plate of chicken rice and a bowl of laksa is a fine place to start.

A taste of Singapore

• Hainanese chicken rice, Poached chicken with fragrant rice and sauces
• Chilli crab, Crab in sweet, spicy tomato gravy
• Char kway teow, Smoky stir fried flat rice noodles
• Satay, Grilled chicken skewers with peanut sauce
• Fish head curry, Snapper in tangy tamarind and okra curry
• Katong laksa, Spicy coconut and shrimp noodle soup
• Kopi, Dark coffee with sweetened condensed milk
• Singapore Sling, Gin, cherry and pineapple cocktail
• Kaya toast, Toast with coconut jam and soft eggs

Circuits

• Marina Bay Street Circuit

Drivers