MotoGP fails to take off at Silverstone: nearly an attendance flop

Seeing most of the grandstands at Silverstone desolately empty, someone even cracked a joke that carried a half-truth. "To ensure that MotoGP races in front of a stunning crowd, it should be the support series at a British Superbike event."

A joke, nothing more, but in fact the lack of spectators at the UK round of the world championship calendar is no small problem.

In the post-pandemic years, Silverstone has once again become one of the most packed destinations for Formula 1: over half a million spectators over the weekend, resetting the record last July with 564,000 attendees across the four days (Thursday to Sunday). A month later, MotoGP essentially did 1/5 of those numbers: 105,885 total spectators, split between 27,137 on Thursday and Friday, 35,663 on Saturday, and 43,085 on Sunday.

For motorcycle racing, at least in recent times, Silverstone has never hosted a full house in any championship. Not even BSB, to the point that it no longer races there (and from 2018 it ran on the “short” National layout), never drawing respectable spectator numbers. Moving the British Grand Prix on the calendar from late May to early August hasn’t helped at all, with attendance in line with the 2025 Grand Prix (40,518 on Sunday, 99,328 over the weekend).

And yet there was a time, not even that long ago, when MotoGP at Silverstone drew more than 70,000 spectators on Sunday and 150,000 over the weekend. Since returning to this track, it happened on six separate occasions, the last in 2016 (73,310 on Sunday, 155,550 over the weekend). It didn’t go that badly in 2021 either, with 142,000 total spectators, including 67,000 on Sunday’s Race Day. In short: today that would be a big deal, also because the contract with Silverstone has been renewed for another two years. In 2027–2028, inevitably, it will be essential to identify suitable countermeasures to attract as many spectators as possible in one of the most important motorsport nations in the world.