Silverstone Boasts Record Crowd Attendance

The mud, traffic chaos and criticism of last year's British Grand Prix were just a memory on Sunday, as fans flocked to Silverstone in record numbers.

The weather held off, despite showers on Friday and Saturday, and organisers said significant strides had been made to improve the circuit's tarnished image since last year's fiasco.

"We're very pleased," said Rob Bain, chief executive of Octagon Motorsports, after a weekend that saw a record attendance over the three days of 267,000. He said cars were on average leaving the circuit with 45 minutes less delay than in the past, adding that the car parks, waterlogged and turned into muddy swamps last year, had withstood the volume of traffic.

"This morning the average speed on the A43 from a mile away was six miles an hour which doesn't sound a lot but is double what we've achieved in the past," he said. "The car parks are bearing up well."

Last year, with the race held in the wet month of April rather than its traditional July date, the churned-up car parks were closed to the public on the Saturday when qualifying draws a big crowd.

"It was extremely important (for Silverstone's future)," Bain said of the changes, which included spending $250,000 on upgrading car parks. "Silverstone had a bad record last year and we had to fix it. Obviously, we weren't responsible for last year but we had to make sure we got it right this year."

Octagon have the rights to host the British Grand Prix for 10 years with a further five-year option. But FIA President Max Mosley warned as recently as last February that Silverstone could lose the Grand Prix if conditions were not improved significantly.

Bain admitted there were still some things to fix and mistakes had been made this year, but he said valuable lessons had also been learned. "We'll learn on this year. We've employed traffic consultants to monitor flow and come up with working suggestions for next year," he said. "I think they (the FIA) are as happy as they'll ever be, they're perfectionists."

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, though admitting that he arrived by helicopter, also complimented the organisers, who have plans to spend up to $120 million to turn the circuit into a top-class venue.