BRDC shake-up at Silverstone

The British Racing Drivers' Club has taken over the day-to-day running of Silverstone after three senior executives were suspended amid a major management restructuring at the Formula 1 venue.

The futures of Silverstone Circuit Limited's former managing director Richard Phillips and financial and legal directors Ed Brookes and David Thompson are in doubt at the same time as the BRDC undergoes what it is calling a process of consultation on senior management positions.

BRDC chairman John Grant and director Lawrence Tomlinson have undertaken the roles of joint acting chief executives of SCL. The move is part of a desire for the club to take a closer role in the running of the circuit, which has been the subject of two failed sales in the past few years, and Grant and Tomlinson both assumed the joint interim executive roles last month.

The BRDC said "the suspension of senior executives at SCL" was "coincidental to the restructure."

"To clarify, the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC), who own SCL, are taking a closer role in the running of the Silverstone business, with a new operating structure between the Club and the circuit. John Grant, Chairman of the BRDC, and Lawrence Tomlinson, Director of the BRDC, have assumed the role of Joint Acting Chief Executive of SCL.

"Having reviewed the Silverstone business, they have embarked on an exciting program of restructuring to make the business more streamlined, concentrating on their core competencies as a circuit operator and the home of the British Grand Prix."

Tomlinson, whose LNT business portfolio includes sportscar manufacturer Ginetta, was elected to the BRDC's board of directors in August.

Grant, who became BRDC president in late 2013, said earlier this year that Silverstone's future as the home of the British Grand Prix – a deal which was renewed for 17 years in 2010 – was safe despite the most recent breakdown in negotiations to sell it.

A deal to sell SCL and a long-term lease on the facility fell through but it did lease 760 acres of industrial land to commercial property company MPEC.

There are no current plans to sell the circuit, but any potential sale would now have to go to a vote of the 800-strong membership of the BRDC, which is a mutual society, after its previous Members' Chart – which granted the BRDC board the authority to sell the track – expired in 2010.