British GP Is Silverstone on its final lap?
The venue is at risk of losing its grand prix and has to act quickly to meet future demands
Drivers, nearly to a man, adore it because it allows them to tear through flat-out
Once it was twinengined bombers that spoilt the peace of Silverstone’s bucolic setting, back when the Royal Air Force used it for wartime training sorties. Now, it is the squeal of V6 engines, nothing like as cacophonous as the V10 strapped to Nigel Mansell’s 1992 Williams but still piercing enough to upset the local livestock. One forms some idea of the remoteness of this place from the story, possibly apocryphal, that when one resident decided in 1947 to take his Frazer-nash sports car for a spin on the disused airfield and promptly collided with a sheep, it became known as the Mutton Grand Prix.
Nowhere in Formula One polarises opinion so starkly as these 3.6 twisting, windblown miles of asphalt in the Northamptonshire countryside. To its admirers, it is a shrine, a motoring Lourdes, whose corners are known not by any cold numbering sequence but by evocative pet names: Abbey, Farm, Village, Maggotts. To its detractors, it is a forsaken outpost, where the abiding memory is either of camping out in liquid mud or spending a Sunday morning trapped in enervating gridlock on the A43.
The circuit itself exists in a perpetual state of peril. For years it struggled to escape the cutting caricature of Bernie Ecclestone, who called it a “country fair masquerading as a world-class sports event”, until a £28million upgrade gave it a corporate gloss designed to ensure its acceptance long into the 21st century. Again, though, conditions are precarious. This week, John Grant, chairman of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, confirmed with a heavy heart that they, as the track’s owners, would trigger a break clause in their contract and end their staging of the grand prix in 2019.
The reason? Silverstone is burning through money like a full-throttle Lewis Hamilton guzzles fuel. In 2015, its losses were £2.4 million, rising to almost £5 million last year, despite the fact that it hosts the best-attended sports event in the country. Almost twice as many people attend race-day here than fill out Wembley Stadium and yet, due to an escalating promoter’s fee that rises by five per cent each year – try selling that type of deal as a mortgage lender – the BRDC still cannot make ends meet. Such were the ruthlessness of the terms negotiated in the Ecclestone era that even demonstrable success can equate to financial ruin.
If Grant was expecting sympathy, though, it was in short supply. Christian Horner of Red Bull, who, like seven other F1 teams keep a base within a 50-mile radius of Silverstone, accused the BRDC of posturing. “It is hard to imagine they are losing money putting 120,000 people, plus all the corporates, in there over a weekend,” he said. “They spent a fortune on the pits and put them in the wrong place. They have created a paddock with zero atmosphere at one of the most historic tracks in the UK, so there has been serious misjudgement and mismanagement.”
Some of these criticisms are well-founded. The paddock, rather like its equivalent in Shanghai, which has swelled roughly to the size of Liechtenstein, has all the exotic ambience of a Tesco car park. But Horner speaks with the insider’s perspective bestowed by an all-access pass. For fans roaming this vast swathe of motorsport real estate, the Silverstone experience is a far more visceral one. The
sightlines from the grandstand at Woodcote or the exit at Copse offer some of the rawest impressions of speed around. In the seats lining the back straight, there is the feel of a European convention, as ardent Hamilton disciples mingle with Max Verstappen fans clad in Dutch orange.
For Silverstone’s sake, it must be hoped that tomorrow’s race is one for posterity, to sit alongside 1991, when Mansell gave Ayrton Senna a lift back after the Brazilian’s Mclaren had run out of fuel.
By threatening to withdraw gracefully in two years’ time, they have just a couple of chances left to convince Liberty Media, Ecclestone’s successors, that they deserve a more favourable economic arrangement. Neither chief executive Chase Carey nor commercial guru Sean Bratches have attended a British Grand Prix, and Silverstone’s calculation is that they could yet be smitten by the size of the galleries, especially if galvanised by a triumph for Hamilton, who stands to emulate the great Jim Clark’s record of four consecutive wins.
Drivers, nearly to a man, adore Silverstone, not least because this season’s beefed-up muscle-cars allow them to tear through the complex of Becketts and Chapel essentially flat-out. For Hamilton in particular, the emotional resonance is profound.
He esteems the honour of victory in his home race as the closest rush to winning an Olympic gold medal and claims still to recall his maiden performance here, throwing his go-kart around a track strewn with straw bales. “My favourite grand prix is still that win in the rain,” he says, remembering the occasion in 2008 when he showed his Senna-esque genius, following the tracks in the surface water that he remembered from his Formula Renault days.
Tomorrow the diehards will gather in force once more, anticipating the next piece of grand theatre. Some, like Andrew Hyatt, will stake their spots at Stowe from 3.45am. Even Damon Hill, a homegrown world champion, will savour all the strange rhythms of the day. He claimed his sole Silverstone win in 1994 and cherishes the memory of signing autographs on the grass until the sun went down.
F1 finds itself at a fascinating intersection, working out how best to balance its western European tracks with the spangly North American backdrops that Carey is already targeting as the future. To jettison Silverstone would feel like a grievous betrayal of tradition. For, if the sport cannot make a spectacle of this fervour and sweep pay its way, then it surely has its priorities all wrong.