Britain might have to share its annual grand prix with France if the countries want to remain on the calendar at all beyond 2009.
That is the admission of 1996 drivers’ world champion Damon Hill, who today is the president of the club that owns the Silverstone circuit.
The 46-year-old admitted that, as has become a traditional experience with Bernie Ecclestone as F1 supremo, the Northamptonshire race’s long term future is not secure.
Asked by reporters about suggestions that Silverstone could alternate a single annual event with French grand prix venue Magny Cours, Hill said: “We should remain open to all sorts of plans.
“It would be a last resort because we want to keep Britain in the frame every year,” he cautioned.
There is some uncertainty about plans to redevelop the disused World War II airfield, which held the inaugural world championship race in 1950, amid a new era of competition against government funded events in Asia and the East.
Hill admitted: “(The grand prix) certainly would be very difficult to get it back if we lost it.”
