To the surprise of almost no F1 fan, the British Grand Prix is now teetering on the edge of disappearing from the calendar.

The deal Bernie Ecclestone's FOM (Formula One Management) struck with Simon Gillett, who currently holds the lease on the Donnington Park Circuit, was for that venue to stage the British Grand Prix from 2010 until 2020.

Ecclestone has made it very clear that under no circumstances would Silverstone stage the event after 2009.

The owners of the Donnington Park circuit are now taking legal action to recover £2,470,000 of unpaid rent from Simon Gillett's company Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd, and are demanding that the lease is surrendered.

Although the sum of money involved is trivial by F1 standards, the matter is enough to torpedo hopes that the British GP can be retained.

It has never been publicly clear how Gillett planned to raise the money to bring Donnington Park up to the required standards.  FOM require a very substantial payment, usually in excess of £20 million, for a circuit to stage an F1 GP, and the promoter's only way of covering that cost is from gate receipts.

Because of those peculiar financial arrangements, staging a GP has ceased to be a purely commercial proposition, and we see events moving to areas where governments will foot the bill for promotional reasons.

If by September 2009 Simon Gillett is unable to prove to Bernie Ecclestone that he will have Donnington Park ready in time, that will be the end of F1 racing in Britain.