The bosses of the British GP at Silverstone have rubbished the idea of cutting a grand prix weekend down to just two days – scrapping the Friday practice sessions.
Williams CEO, Adam Parr, suggested the idea in Turkey after the media discussed how he and the other teams would feel about an enlarged calendar, possibly expanding to 24 races by 2012.
Whilst Friday isn’t a popular day at all circuits, especially at this weekends GP in Istanbul where the grandstands were near empty, the day is popular at the more traditional circuits, with 80,000 fans attending Friday at Silverstone in 2009.
“Friday is big at Silverstone,” said circuit chairman Neil England. “It would reduce the people coming to stay.
“It would be hugely disappointing for us. To take a day off seems to be madness,” he told the Mirror. “We had 80,000 last year on the Friday, why would anyone destroy that?”
Silverstone managing director Richard Phillips, who described the weekend as a short holiday, agrees.
“For us it would be a great shame to lose Friday because a lot of people camp on Friday and stay locally,” said Phillips.
Phillips reckons the suggestion that practice be scrapped, but Friday remain for autograph sessions and allowing fans to get closer to the drivers is a better compromise.
“That might be better,” he replied. “If you get the crowd closer to the drivers it would be great. We should lengthen, not shorten, race weekends.”
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