Silverstone managing director Richard Phillips has thanked the British fans for their resilience and again turning out in their numbers to support this weekend’s grand prix.
Just a few weeks ago there were concerns about poor ticket sales, with organisers believing there to be a backlash from last year’s disaster, along with the lack of a British race winner this season.
Twelve months ago, given the horrendous weather conditions, Phillips was forced to ask fans not to turn up for qualifying on Saturday in an attempt to protect sodden car parks for those attending on race day.
The move was naturally not well received and almost led to Phillips quitting his post given the seriousness of the situation.
With lessons learned, considerable investment was then made to ensure there would be no repeat, only for the fans to seemingly stay away.
Following considerable promotion, however, a combined crowd of around 300,000 over the three days - the third biggest in the circuit’s history - is being anticipated.
“We’ve seen huge sales in the last six weeks, and after what we went through last year that’s quite an achievement,” said Phillips, speaking to Press Association Sport.
“Several weeks ago we were 10 per cent down, which is not massive, but enough to make a considerable financial difference.
“So I’m really pleased.
“Obviously you get concerned when you go through a difficult year like last year, that you won’t recover from it.
“But we did all the right things, we were honest about it, we refunded people and then we made a huge investment.
“It’s huge the amount of development that has gone on.
“We’ve invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in improvements and the way we run things, everything was re-analysed and we have moved on.
“After the issues of last year we have worked hard to build the crowd back up and they are here, which is a great testament to the resilience of the British fan.”
The weather, however, played its part again today, with the opening practice session almost a washout given the constant fall of rain.
It was only in the final 10 minutes of the 90 that any serious action took place, leaving Phillips feeling sorry for the spectators.
“This isn’t rain is it? We had rain last year, this is a bit of drizzle!” joked Phillips.
He added: “But yes, I’m disappointed because I like people to come in and have a great time.
“If it’s raining it takes the edge off a bit.
“This sort of thing is not going to have any effect on us in terms of the logistics as we’ve moved on miles from last year, which hopefully was a one-off.
“But these people that have come here today are here to watch cars, and they have paid a lot of money for it.”