2019 British GP preview: the story of Silverstone's surfacing disaster

The process began months ago, before Christmas, when Silverstone commissioned Dromo, a circuit specialist run by designer Jarno Zaffelli. The Italian’s developments in surface scanning offered a detailed blueprint of the track’s surface, showing every bump, camber and blemish. Dromo’s expertise is to change circuits without affecting their layout, adding camber and even crowning where required, to improve drainage without altering corner characteristics.

The laying of the surface itself was entrusted this time to Tarmac, the eponymous organisation responsible for much of Britain’s road network – and before you snigger about how poor that is, consider the words of regional director Richard Vine on the challenges his crews face, day in and day out. “At Silverstone, we had full possession of the site – we didn’t have to consider other road traffic,” he says. “It’s our quest to develop automated pavement laying for the road network, but you can’t shut the major arterial routes in the UK to bring this technology to fruition.

It’s usually short, sharp shock treatments. On new road builds we are using this technology, but ordinarily on general maintenance in the UK you have to match what is already there. You have to follow the profile of the road and match it back in with the other lanes. You can make it better, but not as much as we’d like. It’s frustrating.”

For Vine and his team, Silverstone was something else. The process included planing the current surface, then laying three new ones using that cutting-edge automated technology. The top asphalt is a bespoke high-grip mix designed specifically for Silverstone. Created from Shropshire aggregate, it was mixed in two dedicated plants – one in North London and the other in Bedford.

“In terms of haulage, we had 75 to 150 wagons dedicated to this job, on rotation, each day,” says Vine.

The trouble is once it has been mixed, asphalt has to be laid while it’s still hot. Everything about this process had a tight deadline – and it wasn’t helped by the summer rain that hit the UK in June. A three-week window was allocated, apparently more than enough time to resurface the whole 3.66 miles of Silverstone’s grand prix track. “We had contingency and plenty of float built in,” says Vine. Just as well… “We used all of it,” adds Pringle.

Crews were at least able to plane the old surface in the rain and worked around the clock to do so. These were the best specialists available. “Tarmac went around their business in the UK and pulled together the best gangs, hand-picked the best guys,” says Pringle. “They picked their ‘first 15’.”

Once the weather cleared, three paving machines running in echelon were employed to deliver a joint-free surface across the 15-metre width of the track. “It’s very smooth,” insists Pringle. “Tarmac tell me it is the highest-performance asphalt laid to the tightest tolerance ever in the UK. It exceeds the level of accuracy achieved on airfields, which is normally the gold standard. They have laid it to the accuracy of half the height of a pound coin…”