Why is the crowd atmosphere in the chinese f1 so poor?

May be...

It's because Shanghai Circuit has a higher seating capacity than most other circuits so they closed a few grandstands to make way for adverts.

they were watching f1, what do you expect? f1 is the dullest motorsport on earth. motorbikes and rallying, now theyre interesting. but f1??? good god no

It's because the grandstands were empty. The average wage in China is so low that most people can't afford to attend the races and there are also no Chinese teams or drivers.

thought there was no crowd at firstslipper ipaq case