silverstone 2011 f1 gp part 1

My week off started on the Thursday, when I drove down to my Dad's in Devon. This was essentially going the opposite way to the Silverstone circuit to some degree, but the idea was that me and my Dad would go up in the one car and share the driving. The easiest thing to do was therefore for me to drive to him and then we could go up from there.

I obviously packed in the morning. Naturally I over packed - this is a function of the fact my suitcase is quite big (I was actually using the smaller of the two suitcases I own) and the fact that the weather forecasts were for changeable weather. I therefore had something to cover every possibility bar snow. I figured snow was fairly unlikely, even for a British July weekend.

The drive up to Silverstone was hell.

We basically had to set off at 4AM, which meant getting up at 3AM. Due to the added combination of excitement and an unfamiliar bed, I got very little sleep that night. It rained, mostly heavily, all the way up. This wasn't helped by the chronic squeak of my wipers - they're relatively new, expense Bosch wipers, but for some reason they squeak like a bastard.

Now, for those that don't know, a GP weekend actually covers three days. There are two practice sessions on the Friday - one in the morning and one in the afternoon, a final practice on Saturday morning and qualifying on Saturday afternoon, with the actual Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

My memory from previous times I've been was that 1st practice starts at 10AM, but this year it started at 9AM (they made similar noises about it being earlier on the commentary). We unfortunately didn't arrive until 9AM, meaning the first practice session was just getting under way when we were trying to get in.

To my mind this was a serious error on the planner's part. by making it 9AM you make it more likely people are all going to arrive close to the start time. It also means it overlaps more with normal rush hour. If it had been 10AM, people would have drifted in a bit more.

Instead, when we got to the nearest gate we discovered a huge queue that didn't appear to be moving. Initially we panicked and made some half-hearted attempts to go to other gates, but then we finally just waited in the queue. It was moving, but very slowly and I initially thought it might be because they were checking bags.

However, when I got to the front, I discovered that the real issues was a combined problem of there not being enough people on the gates, processing tickets, and the way they'd designed the tickets. Basically, there was a tear off bit for each of the three days on the one ticket.

The tear off for Friday was next to the one for Saturday, meaning that, if he wasn't careful at making sure the perforation was clean he could take off or damage Saturday by accident too. This meant it was necessary for him to fold the perforation over several times. And, as mentioned, there were only a couple of people on the gate, meaning the whole thing was horribly slow.

Anyway, when we eventually got in, we went straight in to the nearest stand, which happened to be at Club corner. This had a really great view of the new paddock complex and you also therefore got a really good view of the pits and the start/finish straight, as well as Club corner and down to Stowe. Were I picking spots to sit, money no object, that would be a top contender.

So here are some photos for what we saw at club:

This is the new Paddocks complex. I'm sure it's all very swish and everything, but to us regular fans it doesn't mean a great deal. Still, it keeps Bernie happy and that helps to ensure the future of the British GP.

This shows you the new pits that are obviously an integral part of the new paddocks. What you can also clearly see here is the big bit of grass that separates the pit lane from the wall where the engineers sit. To be honest, the new paddocks is a bit of a compromise, as they'd have had to alter the track to really fit it in well - more on that later.

This is the new podium. It's a bit in the middle of nowhere, and the plan is to redo all the stands so that you get better views of it. This year they opened up the circuit so the fans could get on the track in front of it.

One of the Lotus's coming down to Vale Corner, just before Club.

This gives you quite a good feel for the weather - big black cloud, but the track's got sun on it for a bit. You can also see there's a healthy crowd and it's only Friday morning practice. This is what they mean when they talk about atmosphere - we love a bit of motor racing in Britain.

A Red Bull.

Lewis entering the pits. It was actually quicker going in the pits, owing to the fact you cut off vale, club and abbey corners.

Young mister Kobayashi got off onto the Astroturf, which was soaking wet and was a tad unlucky. It could have been a lot nastier as his car almost flipped over when it hit the grass.

This is the martial's recovering Kamui's car. It's remarkable the crashes they can come out of completely fine nowadays.

Bit of an arty farty one, I'm afraid. It's a Mercedes and I'm pretty sure it's Schumacher.