Silverstone also wants lottery money

Silverstone is one of the only circuits on the calendar that receives no government subsidies. Its owner, the BRDC, would therefore like to have access to national lottery funds, which partly finance British Olympic teams.

After the resounding failure at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 (with only one gold medal), Great Britain set out to excel at the highest level. This is why it decided to allocate part of the funds from the national lottery to the financing of its Olympic teams. This approach obviously reached its peak for “its” Games in London, as nearly 340 million euros were invested in Team GB.

In this context, some clearly feel sidelined, chief among them being motor sports. While they represent a real industry, weighing nearly six billion euros and employing more than 40,000 people, they are not included at all in this massive support plan for elite sports. This situation is enough to upset its leaders, including Derek Warwick, the new president of the BRDC, the association of British drivers.

He declared to Sky Sports F1 Online: « With Bernie Ecclestone, you can never be sure of anything, but we do have a 17-year contract. So we’re pretty much set for another fourteen years. But I have to say that our business is quite marginal, we don’t earn much money. In fact, we’re going to lose money in 2012. So it irritates me a bit to see the levels of funding from the lottery and the government towards British athletes. »

It must be said that Great Britain has decided to set up a structure that favors the best. Thus, instead of distributing the 340 million euros invested equally, the government has decided to allocate them based on past results. This is how rowing, with its 54 Olympic medals, received 35 million euros, while table tennis received only 1.5 million.

At the same time, Silverstone suffered a significant loss of revenue due to the rain that flooded the circuit during the Friday and Saturday practice sessions. This led the organizers to ask ticket holders not to come in order to avoid worsening the three to four-hour traffic jams around the circuit. In return, they were forced to refund these unfortunate ticket holders…

Derek Warwick continues his charge and plea: « Each rower receives more than 32,000 euros, but young drivers and Silverstone receive nothing at all from the lottery and the government. It is time for the government and the lottery to stop considering everyone working in motorsports as multimillionaires. Yes, there are many people in F1 who are very rich, but our young drivers need help. They need help from the government and they need help from the lottery, like Silverstone. We are struggling financially, we are really struggling and we would need that help. »

Nevertheless, the president of the BRDC will not be helped in his arguments by the appointment by Marussia of Max Chilton, the son of the vice-president of insurance giant Aon…

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr