Why this year's British Grand Prix will not be behind closed doors

British GP - long read

Why this year's British Grand Prix will not be behind closed doors

The Silverstone race is due to be staged on July 17-19

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 14 April 2020 18:07

It is a romantic idea that the start to this fractured Formula 1 campaign takes place at Silverstone.

After all, it was 70 years ago, on May 13, 1950, that F1 was born, making use of a disused World War II airfield to stage the first of what is now 1,018 races.

How we would all love the home of British motorsport to finally usher in the 2020 season following what has so far been a tortuous start to the year, held in the suffocating grip of a deadly virus that has brought everything we hold so dear to a standstill.

Never again will we take normality for granted.

From F1's perspective, eight races have either been cancelled or postponed, with the next in line, France, staring down the barrel of taking similar action.

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And so we face the prospect that the earliest start to the season will be on the first weekend in July, in Austria. The British Grand Prix is due to follow on July 17-19.

F1's managing director of motorsports Ross Brawn provided a hopeful outlook in a recent interview during which he suggested there could still be 19 races this season should it start in early July.

Even then, for the sport to crank into life, there would likely have to be behind-closed door races, two-day weekends and triple-headers, as well as the likelihood of a January finish, as forecast here by GPFans.

Although Austria has decided to slowly ease its coronavirus restrictions, all public events remain banned until the end of June, placing the race in Spielberg on July 3-5 in grave danger, although it has been suggested a race without fans could quickly be organised.

The circuit has the distinct advantage of being in the hands of Red Bull energy drinks magnate Dietrich Mateschitz, a man for whom the race hosting fee of around £15million - while a figure not to be sniffed at for any businessman - could comfortably be paid.

Silverstone, however, does not find itself in the capable hands of such a wealthy benefactor, nor supported by governments such as Bahrain, China, Singapore or Abu Dhabi.

For too many years it would like to count, and much to Silverstone's chagrin, it has been forced to plough its own furrow, sometimes gruellingly so, with every penny reaped thrown into the coffers of first Bernie Ecclestone, and now Liberty Media.

It is the price paid for staging what has become one of F1's jewels in its crown. There are few finer sights in motorsport than the packed grandstands across all three days of its place on the calendar. Last year, 350,000 fans were in attendance.

The problem for Silverstone is that it requires the ticket sales from every single one of those fans, and the spin-off spend from every hot dog and fizzy drink sold, to pay its race hosting fee.

To give you some idea, in its 2018 year-end accounts filed in October last year, Silverstone posted record revenues of £58million, around half of which comes from staging the British GP. And yet its profit after taxation was just £480,000, a reasonable figure for the circuit that for so long used to run at a loss.

Although a new contract between Silverstone and Liberty Media was announced just before last July's race, breaking from the crippling escalator clause deal that was in place under Ecclestone, and which cost the circuit £23million last year to stage the race, the figure for the next five years is understood to be around the £18million-per-annum mark.

Stuart Pringle, managing director of Silverstone Circuits, which runs the business on behalf of the track’s owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club, said last year that paying for the new agreement "is not going to be easy”.

Pringle added: "It’s not an open goal for us. It’s going to be tough to deliver on this contract, but what we are measuring it against is something that was, quite frankly, all but impossible, so we have to be on our game, really good as a business. We have to be agile, imaginative."

As a business, Silverstone was also recently forced to furlough 70% of its staff. At present, the circuit is not making anything from any of the companies that have on-site lease agreements, and that have also been forced to close their doors due to the restrictions in place.

These are incredibly tough times for any organisation, not least the likes of Silverstone.

While holding a GP without fans would be an abomination for a circuit such as Silverstone, that prides itself on playing host to hundreds of thousands, it simply could not do so from any aspect financially.

To borrow American football terminology, it has but one 'Hail Mary' - that Liberty Media, in a state of overwhelming generosity to get the season up and running, agrees to shelve the race-hosting fee. Yeah, I know. What are the chances, huh?