New Date for Classic Silverstone

The Classic Silverstone event has grown into a complete festival over the years with equal focus on family activities, such as funfair rides, crazy golf, stunt driving displays and a massive shopping village, in a business model that relies on a large infrastructure and a high number of ticket sales. Originally conceived to run a couple of weeks after the British Grand Prix and to make use of the infrastructure already in place, the Classic has taken on a life of its own and circuit owners, the BRDC, have concluded that it needs its own weekend away from the GP. They have therefore set a new date for next year of 26-28 August, a bank holiday weekend in the UK.

Drivers are already grumbling that this date clashes with the long-established HSCC Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting. “Not ideal, but we will have to live with it,” said Nick Wigley of Goose Live Events, promoter of the Classic. The HSCC runs the sporting side of the Classic and have given assurances that they can run both events on the same weekend using two teams of officials. They also affirm that the grids they have planned for next year’s Classic are not grids that they would normally host at the Gold Cup meeting. However, the clash is bound to have some effect on the driver line-up at both events.