British GP to still have strong crowd despite delay to England lockdown

The British Grand Prix will still have a strong fan presence despite the UK government announcing a delay to lockdown in England, GPFans Global understands.

It had initially been planned for all restrictions in England relating to Covid-19 to be lifted on June 21, paving the way for a sell-out Silverstone crowd across the three days of the event from July 16-18.

But due to the recent rise in the Delta variant over the past few weeks, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has been forced to extend lockdown by a further four weeks,.

That will now end a day after the British GP, much to Silverstone's frustration, and which has led to extensive talks between the government and the circuit's managing director Stuart Pringle throughout the day. Those talks remain ongoing.

At this stage, the British GP weekend will form part of the government's Event Research Programme, designed to examine the risk of transmission of Covid-19 from attendance at events and which explores ways to enable people to attend safely.

The current European football championships are under the Programme's guidance and have allowed Wembley to operate at 25% capacity [22,500 of a possible 90,000 crowd] for England's opening 1-0 win over Croatia., and for the additional group games against Scotland and the Czech Republic.

Similarly, Silverstone will have fans in attendance, with the hope there will still be a very high capacity given the size and outdoor nature of the venue.

Such plans, however, have yet to be approved, with high-level talks ongoing, and with a final announcement due by the end of the week.

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