They're back - the cars, the drivers, the glamorous models, the media, the marketing men, and the accompanying "beautiful people". The F1 roadshow is now en route to Shanghai from Japan for the last race of the season on Sunday 16 October. Is it as big a deal as last year's first ever event ? The competition itself is less exciting - the driver's competition is decided with Alsonso taking the prize last month in Brazil. But in Japan on 9 October, Renault edged ahead of McLaren in the constructors' standings with one race left. The French manufacturer, seeking its first constructors' championship to add to the drivers' title, has 176 points to McLaren's 174 going into the Shanghai race. Final positions determine how much money each team receives from the sport's governing body. So it remains important for the insiders at least, and to be fair at the time of last year's race the team and driver competitions had both been decided. But even so some of the frenzy we saw in 2004 seems to have died down. Graham Thompson compares this week's atmosphere to the same time last year.

Last year the city was abuzz...

The hype surrounding last year's first Grand Prix in Shanghai was enormous. The city was buzzing with F1 fever for weeks, in response to huge advertising expenditure and blanket media coverage. In the last few days before the event, the pace hotted up - the Williams team, for example, had 14 promotional events in the run-up to the race. Sponsors had high hopes of spinoff from the high level of interest. Williams' marketing man told a media briefing, "growth in China was the principal reason Budweiser came into F1".

In 2004 most other sponsors had similar objectives. BAR-Honda took over Xin Tian Di, for a nine day festival of events, with an F1 car on display. It attracted great attention from locals and visitors alike, with everyone queueing up to have their photo taken next to it. As BAR boss David Richards put it, "China is the Klondike, it's the new frontier". Bar owners were trying (not very hard) to suppress huge smiles, and the hotels are full to overflowing, charging frankly silly prices.

And tickets went for silly prices too in 2004. Prices in the secondary market were about RMB3,000-4,000 for a RMB960 face value grandstand seat a week before the race, and reportedly peaked at over 10,000 RMB on the big weekend.

Initially, last year's crowd seemed to love it. If there was one dominant image from my day in the crowd at the first Chinese Grand Prix it was red flags fluttering in the wind - not of China, but of Ferrari. Maybe it was because the Chinese like a winner. Or at least an expected winner - "Schumi, Schumi", they cried as he came round for the first few laps. Whatever the reason, many locals seem to have adopted the Italian manufacturer's logos with enthusiasm.

In 2004 in the grass areas at turn 6, a ticket cost RMB370 for all three days. The view was pretty good. But with many in the target audience of Western-oriented young people earning RMB1500-2000 a month, it was perhaps no surprise to see a headline in a local paper last year reading "Expensive affair, locals moan". One spectator quoted by the paper said, "everybody is stealing from my wallet". And how many of the Chinese crowd bought tickets themselves with their own money is open to question - many would have got them from employers or clients.

But now ?

The general impression as we go to press is that is a little less excitement. The really serious fans - the ones who go to everything regardless of how exciting or not it might be - are certainly coming. But Andy Slevin, a Western property executive, noted everything "seems a lot lower profile but that might just be because there is less of the hype of last year". Hotel GM William Hall agrees - business is "softer than last year, not so much decoration or hype on the streets, tickets and rooms still available. On the other hand, David Campbell, sales director at one of the major 5-stars, says "bookings are still robust....mainly groups from the F1 sponsors".

Corporate hospitality continues of course. Local media reported that some multinationals had bought around 1,000 tickets. Several foreign companies we spoke to are planning significant client events, but perhaps more cleverly than last year. As one executive noted, "we now know the track geography and logistics, and can be more efficient about transport and where we put people".

Ticket prices have gone up, too, which does not help - the most expensive three-day tickets are now RMB3980 compared to RMB3700 last year. The official announcement said this for two reasons - as per the F1 contract, the right-for-hosting-cost has to increase by 10% annually, and F1 prices increased globally. However, to meet the needs of most ordinary fans, the cheapest standing ticket prices remain to be the same as in 2004. By the weekend before the race, some 90% of tickets were reported to have been sold, with some expat fans only deciding at the last moment.

According to some commentators on local Internet chatrooms, there is unlikely to be a black market. For one thing, it is no longer the "first'" Grand Prix in China, so there is no premium for that reason. Secondly, high hotel and parking costs in 2004 may well put people off the second time. Thirdly, local companies are less likely to buy tickets for employees or clients for the second event. And finally, the 2005 Shanghai race comes right after the National Holiday, and as one netizen put it, "the rich has just spent money and energy on other fun, they need a rest".

There do remain challenges. There are still no Chinese drivers, and are unlikely to be for a decade or so, according to Mark Thomas of Vroom Motor Sports Marketing. And while last year's TV audience was around 300m, it remains to be seen if the second event will attract so many viewers, especially with so little to actually be decided in the championship.

F1 itself as concept also faces competition from the new A1 Grand Prix (www.a1gp.com), financed by an Arab sheikh, a Brazilian soccer star and a Bollywood actor. Drivers race for national teams and all the cars are identical, making it perhaps a rather different sport. The first race at Brands Hatch on 25 September had 224,000 TV viewers. A1 comes to the Shanghai circuit on 31 March-2 April 2006.

Meantime the marketing folk are doing their best. The Xin Min Evening News has been running a special column for F1 every week for some time. Promotional events have been held around the region - such as the one in Hangzhou shown in two accompanying photos. There is to be a big post race party event called "F1 PASSION NIGHT", the band "Michael Learns To Rock" will play for 90 minutes, and drivers from 10 different teams will attend and "revel with F1 fans". Jackie Chan is also due to turn up, it seems.

Some may see the constructors' competition is maybe less exciting than a drama over the driver's title. But Kimi Raikkonen of McLaren said at the post-race press conference in Japan that "it is going to be a nice race for both teams I think, last year our car was pretty quick [in Shanghai] and I quite like the circuit..." As fan website www.pitpass.com put it, "it is hoped that in the not too distant future, this globalisation of the sport will lead to Chinese drivers and even a Chinese team". Time will tell.