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Silverstone will lose the GP before 2027 anyway. It's either activate the break clause and renegotiate, or don't and eventually go bankrupt. If this is a break and then hope Liberty are helpful, it's their only option.
The 2017 Formula 1 calendar development threadFormula 1
- Thread starter prisonermonkeys
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- Hammerhead Garage
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Considering the contract that's in place raises the cost of hosting the race by 5% every year, and as was mentioned earlier Silverstone is entirely dependent on its own revenue to say operational as they don't get government assistance like many other GP tracks do, I'm willing to say that it's not a case of mismanagement. The deal currently going was designed primarily to benefit F1's shareholders and not create a sustainable environment for the British GP.
Formula 1 Group made an offer earlier to take over responsibility for the race for five years, but the offer was rejected because it would have meant the track and all the revenue from the race would basically be given over to an outside group with nothing going to the track owners, and then they would still have to deal with the inflated hosting cost after it reverted back in 2023.
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The mismanagement came from the previous owner of the circuit. Since the new owner has taken over, he's gone through the books and is getting the circuit back on track, but it still can't afford the stupid old contract prices
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Horner warns that Silverstone could lose the British Grand Prix to a street circuit in London:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130669/horner-silverstone-could-lose-gp-to-london
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130669/horner-silverstone-could-lose-gp-to-london
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- HamiltonMP427
Just what everyone wants (sarcasm) another street circuit, and with the issue Singapore has caused for the cars on and off over the years. I'd think London would be worse.
GTPNewsWire
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This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Michael Leary (@Terronium-12) on July 11th, 2017 in the Formula One category.
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When Hamilton won in 2008, the teams complained that the garages were leaking. Some of them used to bring their own garage floors because the actual garage floor wasn't flush with the lane outside. 2008 might have been a torrential downpour, but it happened again a few years later - the year there was chaos getting in and out of the circuit - and the issues still hadn't been fixed. For a circuit that prided itself on being the jewel in the crown of British motorsport (and one of the most important venues in world motorsport), its facilities were embarrassingly bad.
I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again: the problem with Silverstone is and always has been the BRDC. They have been more concerned with the history and the heritage of the event than with its future because they have always assumed that as a founding event their future has been guaranteed.
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I don't think street circuits are inhetently bad. It becomes a problem if they're over-used, but I don't think Formula 1 is anywhere near over-using them - it's only really Monaco, Singapore and Baku that qualify as street circuits. The likes of Melbourne and Sochi are really more urban circuits or purpose-built circuits in urban settings. They don't disrupt day-to-day life the way street circuits do.
The issue with London is that the best roads for a street circuit (Constitution Hill, Hyde Park Corner, Grosvenor Place, Lower Grosvenor Place, Victoria Street, Parliament Square, Great George Street, Birdcage Walk and Spur Road) go around Buckingham Palace.
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- HamiltonMP427
No they're typically not great. Melbourne is the exception in a long list of those that are not very acceptable. I'd be willing to bet when these wider f1 cars no longer exist, if Baku is still on the calendar the race will be like it was last year.
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I see no reason to believe that they're going anywhere any time soon.
There are plenty of permanent circuits that aren't great either. And not just the Tilke creations, either - the Nürburgring and Estoril spring to mind.
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- HamiltonMP427
Nor do I indicate that, but they're most likely not going to be something ever lasting
Yes but permanent circuits are easier to work around, are easier to change and evolve down the line. Street circuits aren't so easy, and host many other problems that permanent ones do not.
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I stand corrected then. When you said "mismanagement" I had parsed that as you speaking of problems at the admin/paperwork level, not that the place was physically coming apart at the seams.
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It has since been remedied, of course; the Silverstone Wing took care of that. And as far as I know, the national pits - the old pit building - have been rennovated.
Like I said, the problem has always been the BRDC because they care more about the heritage of the event than its future. That's one of the reasons why Bernie Ecclestone took the British Grand Prix to Donington Park: Silverstone was in serious need of some work, but the BRDC resisted at every opportunity. I know everyone dismisses "new facilities" as Bernie-speak for a new place to host corporate guests and some fancy architecture that looks good on television, but the reality is that at its lowest point, Silverstone had some of the worst infrastructure on the calendar and was second only to Montreal and Interlagos.
That's how this seventeen-year deal came about. The BRDC finally agreed to update their facilities, but they wanted a lengthy deal in return to make it worth their while. Most Grands Prix are signed up on a seven-year contract with the 5% rider being standard - it was a way of deterring aspiring events from joining for a year or two, getting a temporary boost from it and then quietly exiting and bringing instability to the calendar.
A lot of people will tell you that the seventeen-year contract was a product of Bernie's greed, and it probably was - but it wasn't the only factor in play. Bernie was fed up with the attitude of the BRDC, who expected preferential treatment for their heritage but stubbornly refused to work with anyone to actually improve the quality of their facilities for years to the point that their basic infrastructure was a mess. That's why Bernie moved the race to Donington Park - to point out that the British Grand Prix was significant, not the British Grand Prix being at Silverstone.
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- RazorSharkz
I'm not here to argue, just to point out that Donington never hosted the British Grand Prix, they hosted the 1993 European Grand Prix. Silverstone has been the only host of the British Grand Prix since 1987. Aintree and Brands Hatch(and Brooklands if you count pre F1) are the only other venues to host it.
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I'm aware of that. But Donington Park did have a contract to host the British Grand Prix in 2010 before the BRDC relented and Donington Park failed to raise the money needed to upgrade the circuit.
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Which was the sensible thing to do - why promise to spend millions that you don't have? You make it sound like they're a load of grumbling old crusties when in fact many of them are very successful businessmen in their own right. Would you really expect them to bankrupt themselves so that another businessman whose strategies include bankrupting businesses can take over?
Other parties in F1 get a large income stream based purely on heritage. If they'd asked for such a concession in a deal then it would hardly be an unfair request.
Donington did exactly what you suggest - signed up for the Bernie Ecclestone Life Improvement Program. It left them bankrupt with all the tarmac ripped up. Clever of Silverstone to see that trap and pull out of the deal before it came to that, I would say.
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To perform vital repairs on the original pit building. Which probably wouldn't cost millions.
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- TenEightyOne
And where possible they were done. Silverstone wasn't making money at that point and still had the ongoing commitments to maintenance/improvement of the racing areas. The new pit wall alone was a good example, very costly and, rather like a full rebuild of the pit buildings would have been, eventually a waste of money.
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No, where possible they dragged their feet. I genuinely struggle to believe that thet couldn't raise the money given that they were actively pursuing other events - like MotoGP - that would have cost them more money than it would gave taken to fix the infrastructure.
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I genuinely struggle to believe that one day you'll make a post in one of these threads that isn't just a jibe against Britain and British organisation. It's quite clear that you are the only person here who seems to think the BRDC are incompetent oafs, or the drivers are all reckless Maldonado's and it's getting boring seeing the same person insulting my country all the time.
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Please explain to me how being unable to afford rennovations to key infrastructure but simultaneously being able to afford more-expensive sanctioning fees for other events is a good business plan.
Do you know why I'm not critical of other circuit organisers? Because they're not farcical! If any other circuit organisers did something like this, I'd be equally critical of them. The only other circuit with such poor facilities is Montreal since they haven't upgraded their facilities since the pits moved from the far end of the circuit. But given that they're on an artificial island with nowhere to move the paddock and no way to rebuild the existing facilities without being unable to fill the terms of their contract because they would need to demolish the existing pit building, I'd say they get a pass.
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DesertPenguin09
(Banned)
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I'm not knocking the fact that F1 is such a large scale thing now-a-days, but that is certainly a damning fact that proves it heavily.
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Formula 1 is right up there with the Olympics and World Cup as a showcase of the location it takes place in, so governments are more than willing to throw money at it in the hopes that it'll present a positive media image. Especially countries that want to try and distract from their dubious political or ethical reputations.
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It turns out then that spending other people's money on your race track is easier than spending your own. It must be nice for these public circuits not to have to look at the balance sheet each year.
Didn't Christian Horner spend the whole of 2015 trying to get out of Red Bull's Renault contract?
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So, it's official now. And as expected, the blame assignment has already started with Liberty criticizing the BRDC for making the announcement now (even though they had to, since the break clause had to be activated before the GP weekend officially starts).
I hope this doesn't lead to another two years of ineffectual slapfighting between them before they decide to make nice and get back to business.
I hope this doesn't lead to another two years of ineffectual slapfighting between them before they decide to make nice and get back to business.
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- TenEightyOne
It was official yesterday when it was announced - that's what we've been talking about
Horner is a member of the BRDC now as he was then.
That's interesting given Sean Bratches' comments to Sky earlier this month.
