Where was you? i went for the whole weekend, camping was a nightmare, mud EVERYWHERE! but today was awesome along the pit straight! then climbing the pit fences afterward to see all the cars
Stowe B!
Anyway, time for my report!
Last year I went with two friends and camped, this year I went with Dad and stayed in B&B a 10 minute drive away. The queues on Friday morning weren't too bad, Dad was getting annoyed because none of the stewards seemed to know where we should park, we got a spot anyway, arriving at about 8:30.
We went to the International Pits Straight for Practise 1, what we did last year. Unsurprisingly it was very wet and not many cars went out. I did notice over the weekend that the Caterhams produced a deep bassy sound on the downshifts, just like last year. The Lotuses had quite a deep sound when on the power, and the HRTs had fairly dull engine note.
We then went to Abbey to see GP2 practise and HFO Championship practise. I was pleasantly surprised to see vintage F1 cars from the 70's and 80's, though the rain meant they were very slow.
Village for Practice 2 and GP2 (which got red flagged 3 times). For the first 40 minutes virtually no one did any proper laps apart from Kobayashi, but the rained eased off and they all came out. I Should have been able to notice Senna's crash from my angle but only saw the replays. We then went to Luffield for GP2 and Porsche Supercup, by which time the rained eased off and the sun came out. We got back to the car but there was virtually no movement in the car park, so we walked around the track for an hour or so and then left.
It was only once we got the back to the B&B that we realised people had been turned away, and that they were advising with parking permits (including us) not to bother tomorrow.
We very luckily got a parking spot on Saturday morning. Though we saw that people had parked all along the verge of the southbound road through Datford, and that they were even camping on the roundabout islands! We stayed at the International Pits Straight for the entire day. Qualifying was very good up until the red flag, the rain was relentless though. I saw Niki Lauda outside the Red Bull garage doing his presenting, and also Ted Kravitz walking up and down the pit lane. Everyone went mental when the BBC guys appeared! During the red flag our entire grandstand started doing Mexican waves, and we got the mechanics to do them to! Every time a driver appeared on screen we shouted at the to wave at us, and as you probably saw we got Rosberg and Ross Brawn to do it! Everyone booed Maldonado when he appeared on screen, and Charlie Whiting when he walked down the pit lane! Everyone was also furious after Glock's spin which cost a Button a place in Q2 (though it was his fault for doing lousy laps beforehand).
The first GP2 race was under a safety car start, but the GP3 race had a standing start, so that was good to see. The vintage F1 cars raced as well, they were incredible loud, and unreliable! Five of the broke down, and a old Tyrrell, got stuck on the grass and Club, and got out when the marshals pushed him!
We arrived at the circuit at 6:45 on Sunday morning, and had to park in one of the camping fields, though it was only across the road. It was very cloudy and misty at first, with occasional bits of drizzle, but gradually cleared up. We were sat at Stowe B, so we caught two nice shunts in the GP2 and GP3 races, and a Porsche span off in front of us. The sun came out properly around 12:00, and it during this time when the Red Arrows were about that my phone decided to die, I think the battery overheated in my pocket. Petrov drove past a normal speed, but the engine was very growling and then he went up in a cloud of smoke.
The TV screen was very difficult to see through both the fence and all the sunlight, but I could just about make out what was going on, even without any real commentary. The atmosphere at the Stowe was completely different from last year at Becketts. It was virtually silent when the lights went out, and not that loud when the cars went past for the first time, though I guess there was no roof to contain the sound.
I was just able to keep with everything, until the pit stop window and when the back markers started getting lapped. It was fascinating to see them battling with each other as they normally get hardly any TV coverage. Kovalainen steamed away, de la Rosa held Glock off for a while and Pic was battling hard against Karthikeyan. From my perspective they were equally as impressive as the leaders because they appear to be going just a fast from my perspective, but they only indication that they aren't is that they're further away each lap.
We got to see Massa pass Schumacher, Vettel pas Button (though with all the smoke from Button's lock-up it looked like they collided), and Kobayashi attempt to pass Schumacher. About 5 laps from the end I suddenly realised that Webber was catching Alonso. I didn't see the move but he was very popular when he drove past us. Vettel was catching him at a rate of knots too and Kobayashi was homing in on Button. The two Toro Rossos ran in formation for pretty much the entire race, with Rosberg in front of them in the first half and behind them in the second. Hamilton slowed down a lot at the end. He also did doughnuts right in front after the race finished.
We decided to go straight to the car, and were lucky as our car park was the first one to be opened. We drifted out of the muddy field and only went a few hundred yards before we encountered a queue, not 20 minutes after the race ended! We only moved when people turned around and gave up, because all the camp site exits were open, so people were flooding out of those. It took us about 3 hours before we finally got past all the exits and were able to speed on home.
Overall, good weekend! Not sure if I'll go for the third time next year because the risk of being turned away is too stressful, hopefully they'll learn from this and build bigger car parks!
