Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Sepang International Circuit (SIC) will not become a 'white elephant' as it will continue to host the popular MotoGP race.

"I have talked to the prime minister and the SIC management about bringing another race of international standard such as the GT and its equivalent which have many fans," he told reporters after the launch of Kuala Lumpur 2017 Torch Run (KL2017) in Putrajaya today.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in a statement today said the Formula One (F1) hosting contract has been terminated from next year due to declining returns compared to the cost of organising the race.

The decision was made after a study was conducted on the returns compared to the investments made to keep the F1 race in Malaysia.

Khairy said at one time, Malaysia was the only Grand Prix race in Asia other than Japan but now there are Singapore, China and the Arab countries.

Termination of the F1 contract allows the government to focus on motorsport development programmes at grassroots level and use part of the allocation for organising the F1 race on improving the national riders and technical experts.

"This spells good news for riders such as Jazeman (Jaafar), Nabil (Jeffri), Akash (Neil Nandy) and Danish (Isyraf Danish Mohd Ghazali)," he added.

- Bernama