“Silverstone” reviewed: Updated circuit history overlooks some stories | Review

ABONE OL

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10 Mayıs 2025 11:30

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ABONE OL

News

As a venue, Silverstone may not have the scenic appeal of woodland Spa or parkland Monza, but the former airfield played a uniquely important role in Formula 1 history.

Later this month it will mark the 75th anniversary of the first ever world championship race. The track has changed immensely since then, though not so much in the 12 years since the first edition of Chas Parker’s history of the circuit. Nonetheless, a new version is here, along with a 50% hike in the cover price.

The text, images and layout are largely unchanged from the original as far as 2012, with new sections added thereafter. Each year is covered in with lengthy bullet-point notes on the major races while longer prose sections take in the big-picture changes covering each decade.

Parker has added extensive quotes from the circuit’s top management on significant events which have happened in the intervening period. These chiefly involve the impact Covid-19 had upon two years of racing, which led to Silverstone being one of three venues which held a pair of rounds in 2020.

This occured shortly after Silverstone went through the disruption of resurfacing its circuit twice in consecutive seasons. The second came about after the 2018 Moto GP was cancelled as heavy rain fell and pooled on the new surface.

In sharp contrast to those challenges, Liberty Media’s takeover of F1 should be considered “perhaps the best thing that ever happened from Silverstone’s point of view” according to the author. Former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone had a rocky relationship with the circuit and its operator, the British Racing Drivers Club. Its contract with Liberty Media now runs to 2034, a duration many European venues would envy.

However the author is keen to gloss over other significant details. Of the 2020 British Grand Prix he notes “four members of an environmental group were arrested trying to unfurl a banner”, though the Extinction Rebellion activists were rather more successful than that: Their fully unfurled banner was visible in F1’s broadcast of the race in an embarrassing incident for the series and circuit.

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This may seem a minor point to pick up on, but it’s part of a theme: There is no obvious mention of the track invasion at the 2022 British Grand Prix by another environmental group, Just Stop Oil. This action, which resulted in multiple arrests, had the potential to be extremely serious. The perpetrators would have been at much greater risk had the start not been immediately red-flagged due to Zhou Guanyu’s aerial crash at the first corner.

While the merit of any protests will always be debated, trespassing onto a live track risks the lives of more than just the invaders and should be addressed with criticism, not whitewashing. Any reader spotting these omissions will inevitably wonder what other relevant stories might be missing from this otherwise engaging and readable history.