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British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) president Derek Warwick
told Sky Sports television he was "very positive now about the
future".
The BRDC owns the former World War Two airfield that hosted
Formula One's first world championship race in 1950 and has a
contract to 2026.
The BRDC informed all members in a letter last month that it was
giving serious thought to exercising a break clause because of
the "potentially ruinous risk" posed by hosting fees that
increased annually.
Media reports have indicated that Silverstone will have to pay
nearly 17 million pounds ($21.08 million) to host the race this
year, rising to 26 million by the end of the contract.
"Monday definitely changed the face of 2017," said Warwick,
referring to the completion of Liberty's takeover and their
replacement of Bernie Ecclestone with Chase Carey as Formula One
chief executive.
"We know where we are going now with Liberty, we know where
we're going with Silverstone.
"We are very positive we can now work this grand prix and make a
profit in 2017. We're looking forward to 2017."
Last year's race, with triple world champion Lewis Hamilton on
home soil for Mercedes, saw a race day crowd of 139,000 and
Warwick indicated Liberty would allow Silverstone to benefit
from revenue streams hitherto closed to the circuit owners.
"What he is saying to us is he might relax certain restrictions
that Bernie has had on us over the last few years in terms of
merchandising, marketing, sponsorship etc," said the former
racer.
"We know for a fact there are some circuits out there that have
more flexibility with their contract with Bernie than what we've
got."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
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