Motorsport: British GP saga continues in F1

Lewis Hamilton leads at the start during the Formula One Grand Prix of Great Britain. Photo / Getty Images

Perhaps now should be the time to look forward to next weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix but it seems that last weekend's British Grand Prix still has a hangover that continues to resonate around the sport.

It was, as it has been for many years, the biggest and best attended Grand Prix of the season. This year the Grand Prix organisers decided to make the event a four day weekend instead of the normal three day. Whether that was in response to the need to make more money or to alleviate the schedule of a crowded three-day weekend is debateable but it did further cement the whole event as a British summer institution.

With another staggering example of the 'new order' sweeping through the sport, Liberty Media brought the very centre of tourism London to a halt on the Wednesday afternoon prior to the Grand Prix with, for the first time ever, all the F1 teams and 'most' of the drivers taking part in the 'F1 Live London' event.

Trafalgar Square and Whitehall were swamped with thousands of people watching F1 drivers and cars, acting like boy racers, spinning with clouds of smoke and speeding with ear splitting engine noise, all against the promoters orders I am happy to say.
A reminder of just how good the 'pre power unit' days were.

All this was set against a cloud that had descended over the very future of the Grand Prix event being held at Silverstone.

As the London event was a major shift in thinking from the Bernie Ecclestone days of Formula 1 where any form of promotion by his organisation was not only frowned upon but actively discouraged, the shackles with which Bernie encumbered the owners of Silverstone, the British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC), in the form of contract commitments have now come to the point where the BRDC board, as not only the owners but also the ultimate promoters of the event, think the financial burden unsustainable.

To be able to renew the contract to host the GP at all in 2009, Ecclestone forced the BRDC to build a new pit and paddock complex costing around $50 million and then further commit to a contract that had an escalation clause.

Silverstone paid $21 million to host the British Grand Prix in 2010. With the 5% escalator that figure had increased to $29 million this year and would reach $45 million by 2026, the final year of the contract. A staggering and currently unrealistic figure to pay just for the 'privilege' of hosting the event, therfore the BRDC have activated a break clause in the contract which means the last Grand Prix at Silverstone will be in 2019.

So who is to blame?

Bernie for getting the best deal he could or perhaps weak management of the BRDC desperate to keep the event at a time when the economy was doing well?

In building the new pit complex, dubbed 'The Wing' and re-siting the pits to the very back of the original track, the whole essence of Silverstone has been changed, sadly for the worse.

Described variously as badly designed, sterile and bland the pits and paddock now have little atmosphere compared to the original and even the nature of the track itself has changed so much as to emasculate it in the eyes of many 'old school' drivers and devotees.

Silverstone is not what it once was so does it need to be saved, does it need to be the home of the British Grand Prix and of motor racing itself?

The answer has to be an emphatic yes.

Despite its failings, of which there are many, Silverstone remains the home of the sport.
With an estimated crowd of 400,000, the largest crowd of any of the GPs (perhaps inflated by 'Hamilton mania' this year) and sited in the very heart of the entire industry with all of the biggest motorsport events held there each year, what else could it be.

The thought of losing the spectacle of Formula 1 cars actually racing, at top speed, on an open, still demanding traditional track, one of the fastest on the calendar, and swapping all of that for a meaningless street race with these brutes of Formula 1 cars penned between the canyon walls that racing on the street will inevitably mean, fills me with horror and will be a fatal mistake for both the sport and the new owners of it.

Good for Formula E perhaps but not Formula 1.

The negotiations will be difficult, as Liberty Media cannot be seen to be reducing the fee for just one of the twenty or so promoters around the world.

If they did then there would be an avalanche of emails asking for similar treatment, and nor do they want to, but something, somebody, has to move somewhere because a deal simply has to be done.

Like Spa, Monza and even Suzuka, Silverstone is what Formula 1 is all about and the foundations upon which the sport was built.

Take away the foundations and the house of cards that is Formula 1 will crumble.