Quote:
Originally Posted by crmalcolm
The figures were released by the Managing Director of Commercial Operations at Formula 1 - and are the cumulative figures over the weekend.
They were compiled from the figures provided by the promoters of each event.
The Silverstone figures are consistent with what was being reported by the circuit back in 2011:
'Richard Phillips, managing director of Silverstone Circuits Limited: Friday's figure was a record at 88,000 [...] Saturday saw a record 105,000 [...] Sunday was also a record breaker with 122,000 in attendance.'
88k+105k+122k = 315,000 The circuit capacity is 155k
Other than anecdotally, is there anywhere that confirms the Japanese GP as being sold out in 2016 or 2017?
These images from 2016, whilst showing a healthy attendance, also show a lot of empty seats....
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As SBF above says, you can do a lot with figures; furthermore, a lot has happened/changed since 2011.
Sometime after that date, spectator numbers were restricted by Silverstone/BRDC to the 90 thousands, and have only been increased to about 110,000 recently. And I can assure you, having last been to the whole weekend only 3 years ago, that there were nowhere near 88k or 105k on the Friday and Saturday. In fact, I would say that there were actually less spectators on both those days that you would get on the average Sunday of a BTCC meeting.
As for Japan, there may have been spaces in the grandstands, but the banking which extends pretty well all the way around the circuit and has stepped "seating" which is free to general admittance tickets, is always rammed to capacity with standing only at the top of the bank.