Silverstone has outlined an ambition to again host the World Endurance Championship after a return of the European Le Mans Series to the venue in 2025 was announced last week.
Stuart Pringle, managing director of Silverstone, explained that there is an ongoing dialogue with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, co-organiser of the WEC with the FIA and organiser of the ELMS, about a return of the world championship for the first time since 2019.
“The aspiration to bring WEC back to Silverstone is most definitely there - absolutely we want a race in the future,” Pringle told Autosport.
“I’ve been trying for a while after COVID got in the way, but, of course, it takes two to tango.
“In ’21 and ’22 the WEC decided to run a shorter programme of events, and that was important to them. There was a logic there even if it didn’t fit our agenda.
“I hope that a successful ELMS weekend next year will remind the ACO why we should have a round of the WEC at Silverstone.
“We have to prove that there is an appetite for top-level endurance racing in the United Kingdom.”
The last visit of the WEC to Silverstone was the opening round of the 2019/20 campaign, the only season of the championship scheduled to be run to the winter-series format starting in late summer/early autumn and climaxing at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.
Silverstone hosted the WEC in April in 2013-17, but always favoured the later slot in the year.
Pringle conceded that a potential world championship date in the future would be “whatever works for the series”.
That would have to be in April or May because the WEC calendar as it stands now moves back outside of Europe after Le Mans in June with rounds in Brazil, the USA, Japan and Bahrain.
Pringle set no timeline for a return to the WEC by Silverstone.
He conceded that it would most likely require an expansion from the traditional eight races to which the series has returned this year.
WEC boss Frederic Lequien has talked openly about moving beyond eight races to as many as 10 at an undisclosed point in the future, though earlier this year the manufacturers involved in the series talked down the need for an expansion.
Silverstone hosted the WEC every year from its rebirth in 2012 until 2019, and before that had held a round of the Le Mans Series (formerly the Le Mans Endurance Series) in all but one season from its creation in 2004.
The home of the British Grand Prix was due to kick off the 2020/21 WEC season in September ’20 before COVID elongated the previous campaign and forced the abandonment of the calendar format straddling two calendar years and resulted in a reduced schedule of events without Silverstone for ’21.
The September 2020 fixture was due to be part of a double-header with the ELMS, which Silverstone had run since the WEC date moved from August to April in ’13.
Pringle suggested a WEC/ELMS double-header in the future would be a possibility.
“We are unusual in that we have two fully-operational pitlanes, which allows us to run two major series at once in a harmonious way,’ he said. “I think those efficiencies are very much appreciated.”
The 2025 Silverstone 4 Hours on 14 September next year will be the fifth of six ELMS rounds.
