Abela’s promised €16.5m racetrack still stuck at the starting line

Only €2 million of a €16.5 million cash-for-passports fund grant for Malta’s long-promised motorsport hub in Ħal Far had been paid by the end of 2025, as the government continued to miss its own completion deadlines.

The National Development and Social Fund’s latest accounts show that €16.52 million was approved for SportMalta’s national motorsport hub and racetrack at Ħal Far.

However, disbursements reached just €2 million by December 2025, up from €1.5 million a year earlier, equivalent to just 12% of the approved grant.

The project – a Labour Party electoral promise in 2022 – is intended to include a homologated motor-racing circuit, an upgraded quarter-mile drag strip and a karting track meeting international standards.

Yet the main circuit remains caught in the planning process, while the drag strip was still unfinished months after Prime Minister Robert Abela’s latest deadline.

Successive Labour governments have been promising the motorsport community a professional racetrack for years.

In April 2019, then-sports parliamentary secretary Clifton Grima said it would be delivered before the end of that legislature – in 2022.

In October 2021, Grima promised the track would be completed within 18 months. Abela said the plans and funding model – including financing from the NDSF – were already in hand.

Government sources subsequently indicated the track would be nearing completion by early 2024.

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana later shifted the target, promising completion during the current legislature.

In October 2025, Abela announced another deadline: the quarter-mile drag strip would be ready by the end of that year, followed by the full project by the end of 2026.

So far, the drag strip remains incomplete, more than nine months after Abela’s latest deadline.

Infrastructure Malta nevertheless issued Bonnici Brothers a separate €3 million direct order to upgrade, extend and resurface the neighbouring karting track.

Also, a €6 million contract for the drag strip and its containment walls had already been awarded to Elbros Construction – the same company responsible for constructing a massive private ODZ mansion in Żejtun for the prime minister and his wife.

Meanwhile, the proposed main racing circuit suffered a further setback after its environmental screening process stalled because sound and lighting studies were not submitted within the required timeframe.

A feasibility assessment tabled in parliament placed the cost of the complete motorsport hub at €78.3 million, including VAT—far exceeding the NDSF allocation.

The assessment – carried out by BOV Chair Gordon Cordina – projected a negative financial return and identified a €66.9 million funding gap, meaning substantial additional public financing or private investment would be needed.

Despite years of announcements and contracts, the government has not explained how it will finance the complete hub or provided a dependable date for its delivery.