Five-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton felt "conflicted" to race in a "poor" country like India and said that the huge amount of money could have been spent on building homes and schools rather than a Formula One track. Hamilton questioned the strategy of taking Formula One to places like India, Korea and Turkey where the sport did not survive for long. Vietnam is another country which doesn't have rich motorsport history but will be hosting a Formula One race in 2020.

"We've got a lot of real racing history in England, Germany, Italy and now in the United States, it is starting to grow. But you only have one event per year in those places. If it was my business, I'd be trying to do more events in those countries," Hamilton told BBC. "I've been to Vietnam before and it is beautiful. I've been to India before to a race which was strange because India was such a poor place yet we had this massive, beautiful grand prix track made in the middle of nowhere. I felt very conflicted when I went to that grand prix.