Silverstone Friday 6th July 2012

After the British Truck Grand Prix it was the other British Grand Prix for The Spectator with a visit to Friday Practice Day at Silverstone. At precisely 5.25am I set off from home in the knowledge that any arrival after 7/7.30ish would be too late and it turned out to be one of the best bits of planning I've ever made. The omens weren't good as the day before Silverstone were issuing warnings about the state of their campsites and with a terrible weather forecast for Friday it was no surprise that most of the car parks would be out of action too. I arrived at about 6.40 and made my way into the circuit -the question was though, would I get out in the evening!
Track action for the day consisted of 2 x 90 minute sessions for Formula One, practice and qualifying for GP2 and single practice sessions for GP3, Porsche Supercup and Historic F1. The Becketts Grandstand was my choice for the morning for 2 reasons. 1-the view is tremendous and 2-it had a roof.....The first action at 8.30 was the GP3 practice and very lively it was too with lots of spins as the youngsters tried a little too hard through the testing complex of fast left/right curves. As the rain got heavier the stand filled almost to capacity in time for the first F1 session at 10.00. Despite the rain it was good to see all 24 cars out, as my main fear for the day was would any F1 cars come out at all in bad weather. GP2 probably had the worst conditions of the day for their first appearance on track and their half hour session was red-flagged 3 times. Also out in poor conditions were the Historic F1 cars and some very slow lappery was in evidence as amateur drivers in very expensive machinery were understandably very cautious not to bin it.
I watched the second F1 practice at Stowe (where Fernando Alonso hit the tyre wall near the end of the session), GP2 qualifying at Luffield and the Porsche Supercup at Copse. As is the way the Sun finally made an appearance towards the end of the Porsche practice and after a very long, very wet day it was with some trepidation I made my way back to the car park....
Unbelievably I drove straight out at 6.00pm through the Whittlebury exit and even the A43 was clear northbound and made my way home breathing a sigh of relief! I couldn't believe it when I arrived home to see that there had been 10 miles of tailbacks in the morning and people hadn't even been able to get into the circuit at all. All I'll say is that for a big event you HAVE to make an effort in getting there early, you can't just turn up and think everything will be OK especially given the atrocious weather we're suffering in 2012.
The GP crowd is totally different to that at other meetings with some astoundingly under dressed spectators in shorts and skirts,beer being consumed at 8.15am and plenty of  fast food consumption to be witnessed. The GP is now akin to Glastonbury than a race meeting with many fans purely there for a "good weekend" rather than the on track action.
As a spectacle though, there is nothing better than to witness a Formula One car in the flesh and it was well worth the effort (and early start) to go to Silverstone. I pity those who camped in tents for the weekend and dread to think what state Silverstone will be in after the weekend!






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