Quote:
Originally Posted by S griffin
Silverstone may have it's faults, but it's one of the few circuits that remind you why you fell in love with the sport, and even with declining interest, the stands are always full, therefore it is worth keeping, so it was be a travesty to lose it
|
Unfortunately, that's not so.
I fell in love with motor racing having watched the cars at Paddock Bend at Brands Hatch and numerous points around Crystal Palace. I have never liked Silverstone, either back then in the 60s, and especially not now in the 2010s. It was, IMHO and remains soulless.
In some respects it would be a travesty if the UK lost it's Grand Prix, but not if Silverstone lost it. But as I have said before on a couple of other threads, Silverstone may have a capacity crowd for the Sunday, but the majority of those people are not motor racing enthusiasts; they are there merely to watch one race that lasts for something over one and a quarter hours. Even the Silverstone Racing Club's and one of the BRDC's stands were empty until just a few minutes before the start of the F1 race; they didn't watch any of the other races.
And the same on the Saturday for the practices and qualifying; empty stands whilst all the other cars were doing their things, and then the spectators came back from the bars and food stalls for the F1. And as soon as that finished, they vanished again. After qualifying, we sat in a number of different stands, and they were, to all intents and purposes, empty. So nobody stayed to watch the GP2 and 3, or the Porsches; they'd gone home.
And to Greem. I am not blaming Silverstone for their charging structure, because I well understand the financial predicament that they have found themselves in. My point was that it is just not good value for what it costs, and what FOM allows the public to see.