London Formula One race: Olympic stadium in bid to host F1 showpiece race

The idea is one of four bids accepted for consideration by the London Legacy Development Corporation.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said that he was interested in staging the race if the bid was successful.

“This is a firm that happened to be bidding for use of the stadium, not to own it. They came up with a scheme whereby Formula One would race around the stadium, inside it, outside it. They wanted to make sure I would be interested,” he told the Telegraph.

The plan proposes racing on a track running into the stadium and then around the Olympic Park, which has considerable wide-open spaces.

The F1 bid comes after the LLDC reopened the bidding for the stadium after the original process, won by West Ham, collapsed under legal challenge from their defeated rival Tottenham.

West Ham are the favourites to become the anchor tenants, but the Formula One-based bid is the most striking and apparently unlikely candidate to come forwards.