19/05/2020
NEWS STORY
Despite the understandable anticipation as the sport gears up to finally get underway, Silverstone managing director, Stuart Pringle has admitted that plans for back-to-back races at the Northamptonshire track could still get the red flag.
On Monday, following a weekend on which the Bundesliga resumed, as did NASCAR, Motorsport UK sent out a detailed document concerning its plans for restarting motorsport across its eleven sporting disciplines.
"Motorsport is currently suspended throughout the UK until 30th June 2020," read the document. "Although it is understood there will continue to be levels of government restrictions and social distancing in place for a considerable period, Motorsport UK has been considering how to restart the sport, within the parameters set out by government and healthcare authorities.
"Significant planning has taken place involving consultation with stakeholders from across the sport and Motorsport UK's specialist committees," it continued, "to conceive how the sport can be restarted at the appropriate time, while adhering to the government's prevailing guidelines."
Throughout the myriad of documents supplied by Motorsport UK, there was one ever present message, without government approval there will be no motorsport.
"This project has involved a wide representation of the motorsport community coming together and examining how each aspect of every discipline can be adapted to respect government advice on social distancing, and the broader needs of the community," said Motorsport UK CEO, Hugh Chambers. "As ever with Motorsport, our responsibility is to the safety of both our community and the wider public. It is important that when we do restart motorsport that we do so in a safe and responsible fashion that respects the broader public health agenda and mood of the nation.
"We will all need to modify the way we have worked in the past and accept these changes in a collaborative and constructive way," he added. "Motorsport has always thrived on innovation and adaptability to overcome problems, and it has been enormously encouraging to see the community come together and freely contributing to re-imagine every part of our sport, and the practicalities of each event."
"Motorsport UK continues to collaborate with government through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and will update its guidance, accordingly, should there be substantial changes in government advice or restrictions."
Last week, a senior minister in the DCMS, understood to be tourism minister, Nigel Huddleston admitted that his department had "noted and understood" the need for F1 personnel to have five days of quarantine in advance of races, a move which would seriously compromise the Silverstone events.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Silverstone boss, Stuart Pringle reinforced the fact that the UK government will have the final say.
"Let me stress again this (is) all entirely subject to the government giving it the green light," he said, "so that may be a reason why these (races) do not happen.
"However, if the situation evolves in line with the roadmap that the government unveiled at the beginning of the week then it looks like it should be possible," he added, "and we are working with them and with all the relevant authorities to make sure that we can comply.
"F1 are looking to introduce a very rigorous and extensive testing regime to enable them to take their championship around the world.
"We have had to do quite a lot of planning on the hoof to see whether it's possible," he admitted. "It will look very different to how we normally run an F1 event."
While seven of the teams are based in the UK, three, along with Pirelli, are not, and this further complicates the situation.
"It is about overseas teams coming to the UK, but it's also about the UK teams going back and forth from their home bases," he said. "Yes, it's going to be considerably easier for 70% of the teams to get to this race over other races, but there are still 30% who are not based in ‘motorsport valley' here in Northamptonshire.
"So there do need to be robust solutions and solutions that need to meet not just the requirements of this country, but also other countries in the championship, because there won't be a championship if the only place that F1 can run is Great Britain.
"There needs to be a holistic solution that works for the thing as a whole. I know there's a huge amount of work going into that, I know there's a lot of desire on everybody's part to find a workable solution, and there is a little bit of time still. I have hopes that those solutions will be found."
In a further twist, though it had previously been claimed that F1, along with other sports and businesses, would be exempt from the plan to introduce a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all travellers arriving in the UK from the end of May, this does not now appear to be the case.