Chair of Motorsport UK: More respect is needed for F1 and sport here

Matt Hardy of City A.M. had a conversation with David Richards, the chair of Prodrive and Motorsport UK, on the future of motorsports in our country, entering Formula 1, and the calibre of “our” Silicon Valley.

There aren’t many parallels between the frequently soggy environment of Banbury and its surroundings and the Bay Area of California, home to millions of people who scorch in the West Coast sunshine.

We may have our own Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley is more well recognised as the tech labs and data centres of Santa Clara and San Mateo, where the brightest minds in the microchip, AI, and Metaverse worlds come together in a nerdfest of human growth.

Ours, on the other hand, encompasses parts of the Midlands, including a Woking enclave, and has produced motorsports categories as far as the eye can see, including Formula 1, rally driving, and Dakar.

Leading the way in the technology revolutionising the world one brake disc and wheel at a time is Great Britain. Big company, however, will be the first to point you that we’re not really that good at bragging about it.
Here, F1 is doing really well.

“The new 10-year contract for the British Grand Prix is great news for motorsport here, and that has a halo effect over everything,” David Richards, the head of Motorsport UK and chairman of Prodrive, tells City A.M. concerning advanced engineering.

The majority of Formula 1 teams are situated in England, and there are no signs that this will change. Thus, the infrastructure, technology, employment, and other activities—like sports, auto racing, and rallying—all have a significant number of enterprises based in the United Kingdom.

And wherever you go in the world, we’re still well-known today. For them, the UK is the hub of the world, the epicentre of everything related to motorsports and racing engineering.

“It is just disheartening that, aside from a few R&D tax breaks, the government frequently ignores this and fails to recognise its significance and how important our reputation is around the globe.”For many years, if not the whole history of Formula 1, we have been a global pioneer in development. And it only requires a little more acknowledgment. More than anything else, acknowledgment and applause will propel the company ahead.

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