Silverstone to Increase Capacity for 2003

Silverstone organisers Octagon will push the Silverstone circuit capacity up to 90,000 spectators for 2003 after declaring their traffic-easing entrance road modifications for this weekend's British Grand Prix a success.

The race was close to losing its slot on the calendar after concerns over traffic problems exploded last year and the capacity was reduced to 60,000 for this year as Octagon feared repercussions if it happened again.

But with cars streaming easily into the circuit on the new dual-carriageway tarmac roads, Octagon chief executive Rob Bain believes the traffic flow measured will allow him to let more fans in next year.

"We are going to increase the capacity next year up to the traditional 90,000 for Sunday," he said. "We have monitored the traffic flow quite rigourously and the flow data shows that we could put 90,000 people in here and the flow rate won't be adversely affected.

"We are going to apply science to this and not take chances, and we can increase the capacities without affecting traffic, so that is what we are going to do next year - and tickets are available for next year's event at 2001 prices until the end of September.

"I have not had any adverse report at all from people coming into the circuit and now we want to get the focus back on the racing rather than on the car parking and the mud and everything else. I think we have done that."

The event was a disaster when it moved to April in 2000, with scenes of cars bogged in muddy fields creating an image of Silverstone that still refuses to die. The dull and overcast conditions on race day did little to inspire a love of the Northamptonshire circuit, but the new car parks and access roads did the job, and Bain hopes this will be an end to the stories and to the old image.

"I sincerely hope so," Bain said. "The key thing for next year is just that the A43 will be open entirely and the Highways Agency are going to allow us to have the A43, certainly for Saturday and Sunday, dedicated to race traffic.

"So we will have four lanes from both the M1 and the M40 feeding into the circuit, so increasing capacities won't affect us. What we don't want to do is compromise traffic ever again."

Bain admitted that the concerns over compromising traffic will prevent Octagon from raising the capacity of Silverstone above the 90,000 figure, so there will be no return to the days when the track was packed out with 120,000 fans as it was in the days of Nigel Mansell.

"When people say Silverstone the initial picture is what the papers printed in that awful April 2000 event, and we need to reverse that so that people coming into the event actually come and leave in a very easy fashion and enjoy the racing when they are here," he said.

"That is the image that Silverstone has to portray. We are not going to compromise that by ramping capacities to a level that just creates traffic problems."

With the access roads complete, focus will now move to developing the circuit's facilities, with the paddock the first area to go. It will be demolished on Monday morning to make way for a new futuristic design, to take Silverstone onto that next level.

"I think what we have now is a strong platform," said Bain. "We have got the infrastructure right to get into the circuit and now we have got to get the actual circuit itself in terms of the infield right. That's where the focus moves for next year. By May next year we'll have a fabulous new facility, a fabulous new pit and paddock and media centre, one that ranks alongside every other circuit on the Formula One calendar."

Bain said that despite cutting capacity, Octagon has still made "a small profit" with 60 to 70 percent of the grandstand seats sold. And he joked that the circuit could have gambled on inviting more fans to attend.

"I wish I had sold 90,000 tickets," he said. "But that risk wasn't worth taking. Crowds are up compared to last year. About 95 percent of ticket sales for every day are in advance, so you can gauge that quite accurately compared to previous years.

"Obviously we have only got data for last year, we can't compare to previous years, but compared to that Saturday was busier and Friday was busier. We did promote those days, we actually promoted them through radio so we did push that far harder for this year because obviously having cut the capacity on Sunday we needed to try to fill it up better Friday and Saturday.

"There was 20 percent took up the three day pass, but we had staggered the introduction of that so most people actually bought pre-November, when the prices changed and we removed Sunday tickets.

"We are going to change the allocation and there is going to be far more Sunday tickets available for next year. You can buy them up to the end of September, but what happens after that we have not decided yet. I think average prices will be falling."