DAY 10
Day 10 – A new member joins the team….
Today saw us downstairs in our lovely guest house for a cooked English breakfast at 7.30am – and just as we were tucking into our bacon and eggs, the weekend’s addition to our team arrived, in the form of Ben, who has come over on his motorbike to meet us and see the British Grand Prix!
After we had all exchanged pleasantries, it was time to navigate our way to the circuit, initial intentions being to arrive in time for 8.30am’s first F1 Test session of the day, however our new navigator was still learning his trade, and to be fair, the traffic could have been better!
We managed to park and secure the vehicle without to much further delay and we caught a good hour of the first session – the sound and smell of the cars in the flesh is very difficult to describe, and as for the speed, the only word is awesome – here are a few pics to give you an idea…
This was Ben’s first attempt at photographing an F1 car – I don’t think he had appreciated just how fast they would be!
Now we’re getting slightly closer…….
A-HA! By Jove, I think he’s got it cracked!
We trotted off to get some light refreshments and have a look around the circuit…
…then found ourselves a comfortable perch to watch first the Practice Session, then a little later on the 1st Qualifying session..
To our great delight, McLaren have indeed decided to release their brand new 2003 Car here at Silverstone, although we were somewhat surprised at their rather fresh new approach to aerodynamics…. Still, I’m sure they know best…
We managed to sit opposite the Pits and had a good look at the activity going on, and were also able to get this rather impressive picture of David Coulthard in the McLaren garage – although it looks as if we were practically stood in front of David, you may be surprised to know that the following photograph was only made possible through the use of very expensive optics…
Didn’t see him? Have a closer look…
After the success of that photograph, Ben was dispatched to find himself a helicopter and get this rather impressive Ariel photograph of Silverstone circuit – I’m sure you’ll all agree he has redeemed himself!
After various other races – including some Maserati racing and some F3000 – which despite the immense noise, didn’t prevent us from nodding off to sleep for 20 minutes, we left the circuit at around 5pm, popped back to the Guest House, then decided that what would be better after spending an entire day watching cars than to go for an hours drive to find a Little Chef – and would you believe it, we ran into someone we knew! Ok, it may have been planned, but our Little Chef craving has at least been fed… for now..
Until the next exciting F1 report, we’re off to get an early night ready for the morning!
Garry, Mike and Ben, Tour 2003 news, Silverstone.