He wanted a great view of the Singapore Grand Prix, so he splashed $2,800 for two grandstand tickets.

But when the tickets arrived in the mail two weeks ago, he found that the seats were far apart from each other because one of the tickets was from a different price category.

Formula One fan Alan Hart, 37, managed to confirm seats for the SingTel Singapore Grand Prix on the first day of ticket sales in February.

Despite the technical glitches then that upset and stalled many fans, Mr Hart successfully reserved seats over the phone.

His grandstand seats, at $1,400 each, overlook the starting and finishing line of the race track, as well as the pit building where crews work on the cars in between laps.

But when he received his tickets on 4 Jul, one was the correct seat, but the other was for a $300 seat in a different stand at another stretch of the track.

Mr Hart, a British investment surveyor, said: 'It's a good thing I opened my ticket packet and realised the mistake, because many fans might not open theirs until race day.'

He said the three-day passes arrived in a white box containing two black packets - one for each seat.

AN OFFICIAL LOGO

The packets have an official logo, but one must open them to see the seat numbers, something he fears some fans might not do.

Mr Hart also claimed that he encountered problems when he tried to rectify the problem.

He discovered the mistake last Friday. When he tried to call the organisers over that weekend, he was allegedly told the 'supervisor was not in'.

When he called and e-mailed on Monday, he was promised that someone would be at his house the next day to give him the right ticket.

Still, no one showed up.

But when someone finally showed up on Thursday, she had the wrong ticket.

Mr Hart finally received the right ticket on Friday, after an anxious seven-day wait.

The self-confessed motor freak, who moved to Singapore with his family four years ago, said that he was relieved and was still excited about attending the race with his wife in September.

'I'm really looking forward to watching Lewis Hamilton win the GP in Singapore,' Mr Hart said, referring to the star who comes from the same part of North London as he does.

Organiser Singapore GP has apologised to Mr Hart for the mistake.

A spokesman said the mix-up involved one other customer, and occurred when the two tickets were 'mistakenly switched when being inserted into the packaging'.

She added that of the 75,000 tickets sent out to date, only four had been wrongly sent and the problem has since been rectified.

Formula One fans who have received tickets in the mail should check that they are the correct ones. Anyone with problems can call the Singapore GP hotline at 67386738.