Had my first quiet day at work for a couple of weeks so i thought i'd update this thread with some Silverstonie pictures. Needless to say, we attended purely as spectators 👎
Home for the weekend was some smart marquees situated on the Club straight. The area with the front down with No.37 on it was for us
Lining up in the assembly area before qualifying.
After they were let out of the assembly area, the cars were ushered through the pits to que up at the exit and wait for the lights to change from red to green (cue plenty of Lewis Hamilton jibes). As soon as the V8 Mustangs and Falcons started rubbling past the pit garages, all the F1 mechanics started pilling out to have a look at us, they were genuinely interested in the cars, having a good look around and asking questions etc. There was a great comic moment that i failed to capture on camera when a 60's Corolla just happened to stop outside the Toyota F1 garages, one of the Toyota guys grabbed the lolly pop and held it infront of the driver 👍
Pat Simmons and Seb Vettel even ventured out and chatted to some of the drivers whilst they waited to go out. Unfortunately i'd left the pits by then to go and watch the cars through Becketts - only managing to capture the moment on one of the giant screens.
Come time on the Sunday, i decided to watch the race from the pits. From the inside of the circuit you don't really get much of an impression of the angle of the corners or the speed of the cars, especially if you've just been watching the F1 race before hand! I positioned myself on the pit wall next to the Torro Roso 'prat perch', although the screens were'nt showing any of the video footage from around the circuit like they were for Saturdays qualifying, the timing screens were working so at least i could see what was going on to some extent. With the high wire fences on the pit wall you can't see a thing when looking down the track at an oblique angle, you only really catch sight of the cars when they flash directly past you.
After the race had finished most of the historics pit crews headed back to the paddock area, my step brother, his girlfriend and i decided to hang around for a while and see how long it would be before the marshals/officals kicked us out of the pit lane. Most of the F1 teams were busy packing up and none of the F1 drivers or major team players were around. I'd noticed that ITV's Steve Rider was hanging around outside the Mclaren pits earlier and after a while press photographers began to gather there too. All of a sudden there was a hive of activity inside the garage and all the Mclaren team pilled out and positioned themselves for a team photo. We pushed our way through the photographers and got to the front just in time to see Lewis and Heikki come and sit at the front with the two trophies for that day.
Ron Dennis looked happy for a change!
Steve Rider then interviewed Lewis Hamilton for the ITV highlights show.
I almost got close enough to nick his cap and do a runner!
