Silverstone called to book ?

[fatbloke]

The prospect of the British Grand Prix being stripped of its World Championship status is just one nightmare scenario being considered today.

On Wednesday, June 21, motor racing's international governing body will hear explanations from the Royal Automobile Club (RAC,) as the national club, and the Silverstone organizers for the chaotic scenes which embroiled the rain-soaked British GP at Silverstone over Easter weekend.

FIA president Max Mosley, presiding over a meeting of the governing body's world council in Warsaw, may well have his work cut out persuading delegates to take a lenient line towards the British organizers.

"A number of countries are fed up with the way things seem always to go Britain's way as a matter of course," said one FIA insider yesterday. "There is an assumption that somehow there will always be a British grand prix, but there is a strong movement to take it off the calendar altogether. This year's race was bad for the image of a supposed global sport."

It is expected that the Silverstone organizers will offer a robust defense against criticisms that they were insufficiently prepared for the saturated conditions which forced the public car parks to be closed for the Saturday qualifying session, leaving disgruntled fans trudging miles to gain access to the circuit.

It is not so much the substance as the tone of Silverstone's assertion that they did everything possible to prepare for the unfortunate weather conditions which has nettled the FIA. In particular, the governing body will be seeking an explanation for the poor standard of track marshalling.

They will also seek to establish whether or not Silverstone actually made any planning applications to tarmac the car parks in an effort to mitigate the conditions.

It will also be pointed out to them that, up to 1978, they regularly staged a major non-championship race, often in poor weather, and never suffered the organizational glitches which bedeviled this year's grand prix.

Even if Britain retains its world championship fixture, the RAC is unlikely to get away scot-free. In 1996 when crowds invaded the circuit on the slowing down lap after the San Marino Grand Prix, the FIA world council imposed a $1 million (dollar) fine on the organizers and threatened to remove the race from the following year's calendar unless the organized guaranteed that there would be no repeat of the incident.

The best the RAC can hope for is for the governing body to defer a decision until its next world council meeting, on the strict understanding that the national club produces a detailed and exhaustive strategy to ensure that the British Grand Prix will be better organized in the future.

[TimD]

Good grief!

Well, it's interesting to see that it is other national bodies which level the charge that things always go Britain's way.

These would, of course, exclude the national clubs who get to stage two GPs in their national boundaries, and pretend that they are in some way Luxembourg or San Marino for the weekend.

But no, I'm being far too generous to Silverstone here. They have been utterly feckless and complacent. I say send a delegation from Interlagos directly to Northamptonshire to show them how to really put on a motor race.

[Minardi fan]

Ok, this is getting out of hand.

For a start, the FIA should NEVER have moved the British GP to April. It's ASKING for trouble.

Secondly, there is no way they could tarmac the car parks - they are private farmland, as far as I know.

Of course, nothing will ever be said about the two German GPs we have a year, nor about the two Italian GPs we have a year.

As for Interlagos... don't go there. Literally, from what I've heard.

[Gerard]

Here's the official statement:

Having heard the representatives of the Silverstone circuit and the Royal Automobile Club - Motor Sports Association - M.S.A. (the organiser), the World Motor Sport Council decided to include the British Grand Prix provisionally in the FIA World Championship Calendar for 2001.
Definite inclusion is contingent upon:

(1.) confirmation from the FIA Safety Delegate that changes proposed to the procedures in the Silverstone race control have been implemented and
(2) the submission of plans, satisfactory to the World Motor Sport Council, showing how the circuit and police authorities will ensure that there will be no repetition of the traffic problems which arose in 2000.

The report must also detail how ticket-holding spectators who could not enter the circuit, have been compensated. Failure to satisfy all the above conditions at the next meeting of the World Motor Sport Council on 4 October 2000 will result in the exclusion of the British Grand Prix from the 2001 FIA Formula One World calendar.

[Gerard]

And here's the answer of the Motorsports Association, the organizers of the event:

The Motor Sports Association, Silverstone Circuits and the British Racing Drivers' Club accept the conclusions from the hearing of the FIA World Motor Sports Council in Warsaw.
The conditions attached to next year's British Grand Prix are indeed those which Silverstone itself would have carried out in any event.

A spokesperson for the association furthermore commented and said that all the provisions will be implemented in good time for the next meeting of the Council scheduled for October.