The highlight of this month undoubtedly was the British Grand Prix. Not that it was an exciting race (last weekend’s German Grand Prix far outdid Silverstone for that…), or produced an unpredictable winner (damn that Michael Schumacher and his dominance…) no, it was exciting for me in that it was the first Grand Prix that I’ve attended.
Now I know that to many, Formula One racing isn’t the most interesting thing in the world and you’re entitled to that opinion. But hearing the sound of the engines, feeling the atmosphere, the enthusiasm shared by those around you, by another 99,999 people, is an amazing thing. There’s also the misconception that all you see is 20 cars whizzing past and then you stare at an empty track for a minute until they fly around again. That’s not true at all – for a start you have the Minardi‘s tootling around at the back anyway getting further behind so the wait isn’t so long… but also there are giant screens dotted all over the circuit so you miss none of the action.
I drove down to Northampton on the Friday and spent the night bouncing off the walls before remembering I had to get up at 5am the next day. Now the type of ticket I had only tied me to a particular seat for the race on Sunday meaning that I had the opportunity to walk around the whole circuit on the Saturday – no mean feat when you consider that 75,000 people were there on that day and the track is 3.94 miles long… and I had to walk around the outside of it. I sat at the end of Hangar Straight, strategically placing myself on the braking point – it’s impossible to describe watching a car go from 200mph to around 60/70mph in front of you in less than a second. I was able to see cars going through the magnificent Becketts complex, I watched Formula One qualifying from the first corner, I viewed the Formula 3000 race from Luffield. I can’t tell you how amazing it was.
I can’t mention that weekend with saying a massive heartfelt thank you to JSC who joined me there. Despite feeling that she wouldn’t enjoy the race for a long time before, it didn’t take long until she was really getting into it! I’ve converted her!
Photos from my weekend are available here – more are to follow. If you’d like to know more about Formula One then visit either www.formula1.com or www.itv-f1.com.
