China F1 track chief sacked for graft -paper

China's Formula One Grand Prix track chief has been fired for using company money to pay for a house and "other illegal behaviour", state media reported on Monday.

Yu Zhifei, general manager of the Shanghai International Circuit, had been under investigation since October in connection with a scandal involving the misuse of more than 3 billion yuan ($391 million) of the city's social security fund.

Yu, the key promoter and organiser of the Shanghai F1 Grand Prix, was also expelled from the Communist Party along with two other senior officials, the Shanghai Daily said, citing the city's corruption watchdog.

Chen Chaoxian, former deputy Communist Party chief of Shanghai's Changning district, was dismissed from his post for taking a "huge amount of cash from benefactors", the paper said.

Shanghai's top official in charge of state-owned assets, Ling Baoheng, was also sacked for taking bribes, the paper said.

The social security scandal, which broke in July last year, has been described by official media as the city's largest corruption case since economic reforms started in the 1980s.

It has already netted several government and company officials and led to the dismissal of Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu.

It was not clear whether Yu, a flamboyant figure who once ran a Shanghai soccer club and brought Manchester United to Shanghai in 1999, would face criminal charges.

The state-of-the-art $350 million Shanghai track, which can hold 200,000 people and is located in the city's western fringe, hosted the country's first F1 Grand Prix in September 2004.

It held the China leg of the world motorcycling championship earlier this month and will host the penultimate round of the Formula One championship on October 7.