SOCHI, October 12. /TASS/. The number of spectators who watched the first ever Russian Grand Prix stage of Formula 1 at the Sochi Autodrom (the circuit where the competition was held) was big enough surprise even the organizers of the event, Alexander Saurin, the Vice-Governor of Russia's Krasnodar territory said on Sunday.
The attendance at the Autodrom stood at more than 65,000 spectators on the third and the main day of the competition.
Saurin said the regional authorities had received a greater economic effect from the event than they had expected initially.
"All the spectator stands and all the hotels were filled to capacity and the consumption of services here at the Autodrom and in the Olympic park even surpassed our forecasts," he said.
Sergey Vorobyov, the promoter of the Russian stage of the Grand Prix, recalled on his part that promotion of the country's only top-level automobile circuit was a task of equal importance for the organizers along with the sales of tickets.
"Right amid the race when it was in the fifteenth or twentieth minute, our marketing department started getting lots of inquiries over a possibility of organizing corporate events at the Autodrom and that's an immediate commercial effect from the Grand Prix in terms of making the facility popular, not only in terms of the number of tickets sold."
Commercial operations of the Autodrom will be begin literally in five days' time, Vorobyov said, adding: "We begin to bring supplementary profits to the Krasnodar territory budget literally as of this Friday.