Liberty Media pushing for London street race

Christian Horner believes Liberty Media is pushing to include a street race in London to the Formula 1 calendar but the Red Bull team principal hopes it does not come at the detriment of the British Grand Prix's place at Silverstone.

With a street race in Miami nearly confirmed for 2019 and similar events in Hanoi and Copenhagen in the pipeline, Liberty's future vision of the calendar appears to be clear.

The German Grand Prix looks likely to go under again on Liberty's watch, with neither Hockenheim or the Nurburgring able to stump up the funds to make the 2019 calendar and other historic tracks like Monza and Silverstone are also struggling.

Silverstone's current deal runs out in 2019 after the circuit's owners activated a break clause and Horner hopes the famous circuit - which hosted the World Championships first race in 1950 - can be saved.

"I think Silverstone is the home of British motorsport," said Horner.

"It's a great track – access to the circuit now is extremely good and the amount of British fans that are coming to see a British Grand Prix, I think we've got again another sell-out crowd.

"This weekend it appears that [Silverstone's owners] the BRDC and Liberty are closer together and talking more positively about engagement with the fans, and what they can do to put on a better activation with Formula 1."

Liberty brought an F1 Live event to the streets of London last year, something they will do in Miami this year before taking a full race to Florida, and Horner believes a similar process could be in play in the British capital.

"I think that there's a desire within Liberty to see a street race in London and in an ideal world we'd be fortunate enough to have both – to retain the British Grand Prix and Silverstone and to have a street race in London.

"But obviously competition on the calendar is extreme. It's difficult to see two British Grands Prix.

"With Liberty I think it is. As seen from their discussion with Miami, they are potentially looking at different types of models for key markets and I think why not have a race in London one year, a race in Paris another year?

"You could come up with some great venues. Taking Formula 1 to the people as well has proved to be extremely popular – some of the best races that we have on the calendar are street races."