Monday, July 14, 2008

DONINGTON HAVE TO DELIVER

DONINGTON HAVE TO DELIVER

Ecclestone - needs Gillett to deliver.

It is all very well talking the talk, but being able to walk the walk is another matter completely.

However, you have to admire Simon Gillett's bravado for being in the one place you would least have expected him on the day Bernie Ecclestone confirmed Donington Park would stage the British Grand Prix from 2010 - Silverstone!

The Northamptonshire circuit was last weekend celebrating its 60th birthday, and current owners the British Racing Drivers' Club were enjoying an 80th anniversary bash.

Ecclestone's announcement last Friday, in the middle of the first practice session for the race, possessed the subtlety of a police raid just as a party is about to get into full swing.

As for Gillett, one of Donington's joint CEOs, his presence in the paddock was akin to someone stamping all over what is soon to be poor old Silverstone's grave.

Just 10 days previously BRDC president Damon Hill had made all the right noises with regard to Silverstone being awarded a new deal.

Ecclestone, though, had simply had enough of the BRDC's posturing and promises over the years, effectively catching Hill and the BRDC with a blindside haymaker because no-one honestly saw it coming.

In one devastating knockout blow, all of the BRDC's hard work and patience in acquiring planning permission for their new Ј30million pit and paddock complex that was due to be the start of their brave new world had come to nothing.

Crucially, while they may have won Government support from Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe for their impressive plans, in the end it was the lack of funding from those that run the country that proved their undoing.

And so to Donington, or so we hope, in two years' time, a circuit that has played host to MotoGP in recent years, yet if you heard or read the moans and gripes of those fans who attended the latest event, you will know it has its own issues.

Chief among them is access. Go back not so long ago to a time when Silverstone did not have its wonderful by-pass and punters spent hours sitting in their over-heated cars trying to get into and out of the track and you have some idea as to how Donington fairs at present.

Silverstone spent years lobbying the local councils and Government to install the dual-carriageway that exists today and has taken so much stress out of attending.

For last month's MotoGP, some fans spent four hours trying to exit Donington Park down a normal road that files past East Midlands airport. Frustration does not begin to tell the story.

Anyone planning on flying out of that location on one of the many budget airlines during British GP weekend had better set off 24 hours in advance.

To build the kind of arterial road required to service Donington, Government support will have to be sought, and if it takes as long to put in place as it did for Silverstone, expect log jams and frayed tempers for many years to come.

That is if, and only if, the development that is planned - with the blueprint viewed by PA Sport courtesy of Mr Ecclestone - comes to fruition.

Work is not due to start until later this year, however, Gillett confidently predicts within a maximum of 20 months, there will be facilities in place to stage one of Britain's sporting crown jewels.

The venue will not be the finished article as that will be a work in progress over the following few years until it can be deemed a state-of-the-art facility as Ecclestone demands.

Gillett has already questioned the doubters and sceptics who have dared to suggest Donington Park will not be ready in time.

Well, it is with good reason when you learn a few days after the announcement that planning documents have not yet been submitted to the local North West Leicestershire district council.

The other problem is that we have been here before, back in 1999 to be precise when Brands Hatch announced they had won the rights to stage the British Grand Prix.

Circuit owner at the time, Nicola Foulston, sold out to marketing group Octagon, who in turn signed a deal with Silverstone when it became clear Brands Hatch could not be redeveloped to the standard required.

The only difference on this occasion is that Ecclestone has stated quite categorically Silverstone has had its day.

As far as Ecclestone is concerned, there will be no British Grand Prix in 2010 if Gillett and his fellow board members at Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd do not deliver.

The onus is considerable on Gillett and his partners because you would not want to be in their shoes if they became known as the people who cost Britain its grand prix.



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