Ecclestone Willing to Meet Silverstone Halfway

Formula One commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone said he was willing to reduce the sum of money needed to run the British Grand Prix at Silverstone next year, in the hope that the owners of the circuit, the British Racing Drivers Club, would be able to come up with the remaining sum required.

The BRDC were expected to raise £9 million (GBP) by September 30th, and having failed to do the event was removed from the provisional 2005 calendar. The BRDC said they could offer only £6 million, and the British government refused to cover the remaining sum.

But Ecclestone said this weekend he was willing to slash the remaining required sum in half. "We agreed with the Minister of Sport, Richard Caborn, who asked me, 'Bernie, can't you help do something about it?'" Ecclestone told the Independent. "So we split the difference. It's about £1.5 million.

"I read the Northampton area [where Silverstone is located] was going to lose £30 million if this race went away. I thought they would just have said to the BRDC, 'You're short of £1.5 million, we'll put that in because we're still £28 million better off'. But nobody wants to give anything. They expect us to do everything, and we have. We've met people halfway because that's what our sports minister asked us to do."

The FIA's World Motorsport Council is set to ratify the 2005 calendar in ten days, on October 13th. If the BRDC comes up with the remaining £1.5 million, Ecclestone would still need to approval of the ten teams to run an 18th race next season. But the Briton said this was not likely to be a problem.

"Most of the British teams are BRDC members, so it'd be easy for them to say yes," Ecclestone told the newspaper, adding: "It won't be my fault if there isn't a race, that's for sure."