Formula 1 is looking to expand its presence in Asia by staging two more races on street circuits across the continent, according to one of the sport's senior officials.

Despite the initial scepticism, Singapore's night street circuit has become popular with drivers and fans alike since its debut in 2008 and the Grand Prix could pave the way for two other street races in Asia.

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"I'm spending a lot of time reaching out proactively to cities [...] and think ultimately we will realise more street races than we have seen historically," Sean Bratches, the sport's managing director of commercial operations, told AFP.

"We will go to iconic cities where there are large fan bases, particularly new fan bases that we can activate.

"From a fan standpoint the backdrops of these city centres [...] can really make compelling television and pictures."

"We are very focused on bringing additional GPs to the continent here. We're in talks with a couple of cities to that end."

Since being acquired by US-based Liberty Media in January, F1 is in the process of reinventing its image in a bid to broaden its appeal to a new generation of fans and to countries that are not traditionally big fan bases for moto rsports.

However, while the Singapore Grand Prix has proved a success, races in Korea and India made their debut in 2010 and 2011 respectively, but fell off the race calendar after 2013, while this year's will be the last edition of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

In April this year, the Malaysian government confirmed that, due to a combination of rising costs and declining attendances, Sepang International Circuit will not host a stage of the F1 world championship, after having been on the calendar for 18 straight seasons.

Still, Bratches said Asia was the F1's biggest market in terms of fan numbers and the aim was to host a third of the season each in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Meanwhile, Bratches confirmed that a deal in principle to keep the Chinese Grand Prix in the calendar had been agreed.

The race has been held at Shanghai International Circuit since 2004 but was only listed as provisional when the 2018 calendar was released in June.

However, Bratches said an agreement was now in place and could be finalised within a few weeks.

"We've been working hard with Juss Event, the promoter, and we've got an agreement in principle," he said.

"My suspicion is that it will be executed by the end of next month, fully executed. Next year the schedule will be released and there will be nothing provisional about Shanghai because we will have a long-term deal."