» Argentina back on next year’s F1 calendar?

Argentina’s hopes of returning to the Formula 1 landscape could become a reality as soon as next year, according to recent reports in the Italian media, which are claiming that an announcement could be made as early as next month.

The South American country has been missing from the F1 landscape for the past thirteen years, with its last even coming in 1998 after a four-year stint at the very emasculated Circuit Oscar Galvez near Buenos Aires.

But rumours had started to build last year that the country was set to make an F1 return from 2014 onwards on the back of plans announced to build a new purpose-built circuit, the Velociudad Speedcity, on the outskirts of the country’s capital city.

But it seems that the Speedcity’s hopes of staging a Grand Prix could be dashed. A report in Autosprint claims that Argentina will make a return to next year’s calendar as the replacement for the equally maligned Korean Grand Prix, which is expected to be axed after this year’s event.

The Italian magazine claims that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is expected to announce a three-year deal with the country’s tourism ministry, whereby a street circuit in the beach resort city of Mar del Plata, some 400km from Buenos Aires, will be constructed.

A proposed layout stretching some 5 kilometres (pictured right) has already been penned by F1’s ubiquitous circuit designer Hermann Tilke, according to the magazine, which will wind its way along the city’s streets, beachfront promenade and the pier of a former naval base.