FINANCIAL TROUBLE BEHIND SILVERSTONE’S AXE FROM WORLD RALLYCROSS CALENDAR
Shifting landscape in the road car marketplace means firms aren’t behind event any more
The British round of the World Rallycross Championship at Silverstone has been dropped from the 2020 schedule as it is not financially viable.
The United Kingdom’s World RX event moved from Lydden Hill to Silverstone in 2018. For the first event at the venue, the circuit’s owners and World RX promotor IMG jointly promoted the Speedmachine Festival, with a music and street food festival held alongside the rallycross event.
For the second event this year, IMG promoted the event itself, but says it won’t run the event again next year.
“In terms of the concept, it was a great success,” World RX boss Paul Bellamy told Motorsport News. “One of the reasons we went to Silverstone was to utilise the whole facility, not just the rallycross track. What we found is, as the whole car industry goes through electrification, there was less budget for car manufacturers to put people in their ICE [internal combustion engine] cars to test them. Everything’s going towards electric, so subsequently it meant that the likes of Peugeot and Volkswagen didn’t require the track that we used to do passengers rides and things like that.
“Unless you’re actually utilising the whole circuit, it’s economically not viable. It’s a shame, the UK has a rich tradition of rallycross. You need to get a big crowd in to an area to make it financially viable, and we just couldn’t do that, so unfortunately we took Silverstone off the calendar.”
Next year will mark the first time since 2008 that rallycross’s top level hasn’t had a round in the UK.
Asked if Britain could return to the World RX calendar, Bellamy said: “Definitely. Obviously there’s still
Lydden Hill and the changes that the Doran family are trying to do there.
And there’s Silverstone, a fantastic facility in the centre of the country and we’re still on good terms with them so we wouldn’t discount going back there or to another track.”
Bellamy also confirmed that the Canadian round had been dropped from the calendar, but gave no indication as to what either of two TBC events in the 11-round schedule will be.