Bratches: British Grand Prix may not be held at Silverstone
The British Grand Prix could move away from Silverstone in an attempt to prevent the event from disappearing off the Formula 1 calendar says commercial managing director Sean Bratches.
Silverstone’s future has been in question since the circuit’s bosses activated a break clause in its contract due to rising costs it couldn’t afford.
The 2019 race will be the last under the current deal, which was signed under Bernie Ecclestone’s reign, but Silverstone is keen to pen a new contract with Liberty Media to preserve the grand prix for the foreseeable future.
Bratches has stressed the importance of promoting F1 to new audiences in unique venues and speaking ahead of Brazilian Grand Prix, he admits historic race tracks are “not immutable”.
“We’re a 68-year-old entity and the nature of grand prix racing is that it is dynamic,” said Bratches.
“Silverstone was the first grand prix, but we haven’t raced at Silverstone all those 68 years. The race has been held at Brands Hatch and other venues.
“Nothing is immutable in this sport in terms of where we race.
“We do value certain races highly and we do what we can to preserve racing there, but we are a business.
“We are a public company and we have a lot of stakeholders and shareholders and we’re trying to marry what’s best for fans with running a successful business.”
Silverstone held the first official F1 grand prix in 1950 and has been a permanent fixture on the calendar since 1987.
At recent deal with Vietnam indicates Liberty’s plans to bring the sport to the people in major cities, and Bratches aims to find a balance between heritage and street events.
“We look at it in three ways. Firstly, we want to preserve the heritage races, they are very important to Formula 1 and they are very important to fans.
“I’m talking about the Silverstones, the Spas, the Monzas of this world.
“Then we have a set of street races and hybrid street races, where we race in parks and on city streets, such as Melbourne, Montreal and Mexico City.
“The third segment features purpose-built facilities such as Shanghai, Austin, Texas and Bahrain.
“Beyond that we are looking to identify further street races, so this race [Vietnam] is a further step in terms of our vision.”