28/04/2015
NEWS STORY
Though ticket sales for July's British Grand Prix already look set to break all records, mainly thanks to some canny deals offered to race fans, Silverstone managing director Patrick Allen fears that the sport is losing its way and in time the historic circuit could become an endangered species.
"If I can predict, before I get out of bed, that Lewis will win by four seconds, followed by Rosberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, Bottas and Massa, and that's every race, then the product isn't good enough," he said, according to the Guardian.
"My opinion is we need a sport that's a bit more exciting than that. We mustn't lose sight of what the fans come here for, and they come here to watch their heroes in a gladiatorial sense, not a guy on a data screen. When it gets to that, we've lost the very soul of the sport.
"If the car is always about technical expertise and reliability then we might as well have the technical directors up on the podium," he added. "I don't know what the answer is but my feeling is that it's not as exciting as it could be. It's more about the technical development of the car and not about the drivers' skill.
"We need some help from the FIA and Formula One Management in terms of the rules to make it more exciting," he continued. "It is great to have the Lewis Hamilton factor. But when Lewis wins every week how long will it be before people say it is too predictable?
"The drivers themselves would say we need help with that. We need the noise back in my opinion and the whole atmosphere needs to come back to the fore. In terms of driving, it would be nice to see a bit more of a competitive edge to things. You don't see it in Formula One and I wonder if the product is right in F1 currently."
France, the country that gave Grand Prix racing its name, has long been missing from the calendar, and this year Germany has also been lost. With Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix, under threat, Allen considered the unthinkable.
"If we start to see it slip away, for circuits like this F1 is a large chunk of our business and the whole thing starts to unravel. Rather than wondering if our contract is great I would like FIA or FOM to give us a better quality and it is up to the circuit to say 'give us a better product'.
"If we get to a point where, five, six, seven years from now the fans are dwindling away because the product isn't interesting we have a problem," he admitted. "Will it exist in the short term without any crowds? Probably. After that what starts to happen is you could see it start to die away and we shouldn't wait until we get to that situation.
"This is a heritage site so it strengthens our hand. But you can't rely on it. As you get fewer and fewer, it becomes like the World Wildlife Fund - you need to protect it."