“We have experienced unprecedented demand for tickets for the 2022 Formula 1 British Grand Prix,” Silverstone’s managing director Stuart Pringle is quoted by The Guardian.
“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.”
Formula 1 is continuing to enjoy a boost in popularity, largely down to the epic 2021 title fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton and the Netflix Drive to Survive series.
This year’s 10-episode season 4 was Netflix’s most popular show in 33 countries upon release and, according to Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, the audience has already surpassed the total achieved by season 3 last year.
F1’s cumulative TV audience during 2021’s record-breaking 22-race season was 1.55bn, up by 4% on 2020, with an average race audience of 70.3m.
The culmination of the Verstappen vs Hamilton championship battle attracted 108.7m viewers to watch the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on TV — the highest figure of the 2021 season.
Social media numbers are also up, with 1.5 billion clicks, likes, comments and other engagements on F1’s social media posts marking a 74% increase on the previous year.