Ecclestone slams Silverstone race track

Bernie Ecclestone intends to welcome Turkey to Formula One in 2005 and sees Russia as a missing jewel in the crown.

Bernie Ecclestone intends to welcome Turkey to Formula One in 2005 and sees Russia as a missing jewel in the crown.

But he says Britain's Silverstone, the World War Two airfield where the biggest show in motor racing first hit the road on a track marked by straw bales in 1950, is an embarrassment.

"I hope it doesn't happen but we don't have to have a race in Britain," said Ecclestone.

The Formula One supremo labelled the British Grand Prix last year as a "country fair masquerading as a world event", despite substantial road improvements to ease traffic jams. He has not changed his mind.

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With this year's race on July 20th, and the sport's governingbody likely to discuss the 2004 calendar at a regular FIA WorldMotor Sport Council meeting in Paris on Tuesday, he warmed to afamiliar theme.

"It's embarrassing for me when somebody wants a new circuitand they say 'We're coming to England to look at Silverstone,'"he said. "I say 'Don't do that whatever you do.

"If you want to come and look at what we don't want, go upto Silverstone and have a look'."

Silverstone, owned by the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC), is being redeveloped with funds from the BRDC, Ecclestone's Formula One Management and promoters Octagon, now restructured as Brands Hatch Leisure (BHL).

Ecclestone said the BRDC, whose chairman Martin Brundleearlier this year accused him of "trying hard to destabilise thegrand prix", had wasted the money.

"The Octagon people let the BRDC manage the money and theBRDC spent two-thirds of the money on doing good things for themand their members and nothing for Octagon and nothing for us.

"The idea was that they were going to build the Taj Mahal.And that's why our money went in."

Two years ago the BRDC announced plans to turn the circuitinto a world-class venue by 2003 with a revamped layout toinclude a new parabolic curve. There would be a new media centreand reconfigured track.

That has not happened.

"I said you're never, ever going to do what you want to dofor the amount of money you've got," said Ecclestone.

"They said 'No, no we do'. I said good do it. And what havethey done? Nothing. Put some roads in. Spent Christ-knows howmuch on a car park.

"They've spent four-and-a-half-million pounds on architects'fees to do what? To build a car park," he said. "They should bebuilding the place like they said they were going to."