Silverstone denies new race fee is $25m

Silverstone has played down reports about the new British GP race fee.

Earlier this week, Formula 1 announced that Silverstone will remain on the calendar for the next five years at least.

The circuit-owning British Racing Drivers' Club had terminated the previous contract for financial reasons. British newspapers claimed the new fee is $25 million per year.

F1 business journalist Christian Sylt told Forbes that $25m would be 3.6 per cent lower than the previous contract.

But he also claimed: "A well-placed source said yesterday that Silverstone actually settled on $17 million, not $25 million as has been reported."

Either way, Silverstone appears to be paying less than the previous contract, which could interest promoters in Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain who are also in talks with Liberty Media.

Liberty would not comment on the $25m fee.

But a spokesman for the British circuit said: "I don't know where this figure came from.

"The only time a figure was mentioned in the press conference it was $125m but that referred to the amount of investment that will go in to the Silverstone site over the next five years and was nothing to do with the contract," the Silverstone spokesman added.

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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