The weather on Saturday was better described as "sunshine with occasional showers", where it had been "showers with occasional sunshine" on Friday. This made things more pleasant, but unfortunately for Practice 3 it was again wet, so the F1 cars didn't really come out much.
We actually sat in Abbey for the start of the day, so here's some more pics:
On day 2 we started off at Abbey. My Dad's comment was that Abbey wasn't very good, but that was based on the old circuit. Nowadays you can see the start/finish straight, the pits and across the track down to village and the twisty-turny bit.
This is where they exit the pits and you can clearly see that it goes up hill. This is part of the compromise that they've had to make with the new paddocks. Because Silverstone is a circuit that's grown up organically and not been designed from scratch, there are a few unfortunate compromises.
This is one of the big compromises - from Abbey and the main stands along the straight, you can't really see into the closer garages because of how the track rises up. I think I'd be a bit miffed if I was here for the race and was expecting to see the top end teams pitting.
What you can see across to are the lower teams, but they're not really the main attraction. As I say, it's part of the compromises that could only be solved by even bigger wodges of cash, and the paddocks itself was hardly cheap.
Here you can actually see multiple cars going around the various bends that are the new part of the circuit. Our exploits didn't really give us much chance to look at the new bits of track.
Another arty shot, I'm afraid.
After that we wandered down to the International Pit Straight stand, but that was pretty full.
Basically the new paddock complex is down at the opposite end f the circuit to the old complex, as that allowed them to build a bigger building. This also meant the start finish has moved, but they've kept the old start finish and paddocks as well. So now there's the (old) "national" start finish and the (new) "international" start finish.
I have to confess that these stands were a bit of a mixed bad. In Abbey you could see across the new part of the track, which was interesting, but where you should have been able to see into the pits, because of how the track rises up, your view of where the top teams are is blocked. The actual exit of the pits involves driving up a hill.
As I understand it, they're going to redevelop all that area to give people better stands and views, but I think really they need to tweak the circuit so that it's level and then goes up a proper little hill.
We ended up sat in Club again, but in a slightly different position, so here's the photos:
Second up for Saturday we stopped in Club again. It was a different stand, but gave a similar view. This shot looks down the new start/finish straight. You can also see the famed carbon fibre super shed.
Here's another of those stuck together shots, only I missed the middle out, so it looks a bit weird, but shows you club corner and the other bits.
This is looking out along Vale. What you're actually looking at is the old Vale - the new Vale is much tighter and carries on straight for a bit further. You can also just see the pit lane entry.
This hopefully gives a good impression of how our stand was pretty full during this practice session.
Felipe Massa and Jenson Button. A somewhat prophetic shot as they'd be battling to pass each other around Vale during the race.
Schumacher, and also shows you how changeable the weather was on Saturday too - black clouds are rolling in.
Just some on track action. I think Club would be my preferred spot, if money were no object.
I do like the Lotus livery - that black paint finish is very evocative of the old days.
Anyway, our next action was to wander round to Stowe, where our actual seats where. On the Sunday, there's assigned seating, but on Saturday and Friday you can get into any stand if you have the 'roving' pass.
We didn't actually sit in our actual seats, just in the same stand. We did this mainly so my Dad could scope out the area a bit for race day - get familiar with where we needed to go and where the facilities were. I didn't mind, as Stowe's a good place to sit anyway, though it is unfortunately not a covered Grandstand.
Here's the pics from Stowe where we watched qualifying:
We finished off the second day at Stowe. We weren't quite in our actual sets for race day, but this gives you a good feel for what we could see. Jenson would start his move against Felipe here and there were a few other good overtakes too.
One of the Williams. This was actually qualifying for the race, so my attention was more on that than taking pictures.
Mark Webber, I believe, in the Red Bull.
The day ended with us going back to the hotel and this time going out to an Italian restaurant just across the way from the hotel. It was very nice and we ended up eating there on Sunday as well, though that was partly because the other place we tried was closed.
Then it was home again for another early night as we had to get up bright and early again for the coach in. On all three days I have to say the traffic wasn't that bad. In years gone by it used to be a nightmare getting in to the circuit, but they've done a lot of stuff to add to the road capacity around there and they've got it all worked out nowadays in terms of making some roads one way and directing the flow of cars in a sensible fashion.
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