The British Grand Prix at Silverstone has been sold out in a record time in Formula 1 history. All 142,000 tickets for Sunday’s race day on July 3 have been bought by the fans.
Following such a response, race organisers anticipate that such a demand will result in all Friday and Saturday tickets being purchased.
If this is the case, the weekend attendance would surpass the previous record of 365,000 set in 2021. It would also be the first time in the race’s history that all three days were sold out. The attendance in Formula 1 has already increased, with recent events such as Austin in 2021 and Melbourne in 2022 drawing capacity crowds of 400,000 and 420,000, respectively.
Formula 1 anticipates that this trend will continue and its races in the Middle East will be sold out, even though Abu Dhabi and Qatar do not have large motorsport audiences. The latter is expected to take the place of the cancelled Russian Grand Prix.
The love for F1 is at an all-time high at the Miami Grand Prix and the recently announced Las Vegas Grand Prix for 2023, as well as the rumoured addition of Kyalami in South Africa.
This is a continuation of one of the initial ideas proposed by Chase Carey in the aftermath of Liberty Media’s takeover of Formula 1 in 2017. Carey, who is now the non-executive chairman of Formula 1, highlighted the series’ need for ’21 Super Bowls’ to make each Grand Prix a statement event.
This resulted in the 2021 season finale in Abu Dhabi attracting 108.7 million viewers worldwide, while the sport’s presence on social media channels continues to grow.
Importantly, after just one day, the recent Australian Grand Prix highlights on Formula 1’s official YouTube channel attracted 7.1 million viewers. According to Motorsportbroadcasting.com, the same race in 2017 received 3.8 million views after five years.
Stuart Pringle, Silverstone’s Managing Director, said, “We have experienced unprecedented demand for tickets for the 2022 Formula 1 British Grand Prix. We have never reached a position of sellout so early in the year. We have increased capacity slightly by adding extra grandstand seats and anticipate our race day crowd to reach 142,000 this year. If sales continue at this pace, we expect to be sold out across all three days.”