A deal has finally and officially been struck between Bernie Ecclestone and Silverstone.
The British GP will be held at Silverstone from next season in the first year of a 17-year deal reached last week.
The fate of the British Grand Prix has been in doubt for 18-months now and the 2009 race at Silverstone was supposed to be the last at the track with the Grand Prix moving to Donnington from 2010 for…yes, that’s right, a 17-year deal.
However, Donnington couldn’t get the money together quickly enough – understandable in the middle of a global recession. Understandable to everyone, that is, except Bernie Ecclestone.
It didn’t matter to him that the circuit’s owner put his company into administration trying to get the money together. All Ecclestone sees is NO MONEY, and he therefore began his usual mind-games and media posturing by giving Donnington ultimatums and deadlines that they absolutely could not meet, did the same with Silverstone whilst systematically, repeatedly threatening everyone with the idea of “NO BRITISH GP”.
But it looks now like a deal has been reached. The Managing Director, Richard Phillips, says, “We’ve always had the belief that the British GP was an important cornerstone of F1 but, with Bernie, you’re never quite sure.”
He also described the new deal as “peace in our time” between the BRDC, Ecclestone and Silverstone’s owners.
Frankly, the politics bore me, Ecclestone disgusts me but all I’m concerned about is that we have a British GP for 2010 and it looks like that’s now finally a definite for next year and beyond.
