Part of the long-awaited bypass at Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix, has been opened to traffic.

One lane of the new �56m dual carriageway on the A43 in Northamptonshire was opened in each direction from 1900BST on Thursday.

The road will be officially opened by the Transport Minister John Spellar on 18 September.

Work on the bypass began in February last year but has suffered from delays.

Foot and mouth

The construction company in charge of the work was Costaine and Skanska.

Spokesman Darren James said they had caught up on some of the time lost.

"Unfortunately in the early stages of the contract the foot and mouth epidemic did come into Northamptonshire.

"It restricted our work paricularly as some of our work goes through agricultural areas and we did have a 12-week delay to the project.

"But we are opening eight weeks after we originally intended without that delay - effectively a month earlier than envisaged."

Silverstone as home of the British Grand Prix was under threat two years ago because the infrastructure could not cope with visitor numbers.

New access roads and car parks meant the sport's governing body, the FIA, has now passed the circuit.