British GP @ Silverstone.......team upgrades and predictions

What?

From Wikipedia:
Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton, MBE (born 7 January 1985) is a British Formula One racing driver from England, currently racing for the McLaren team. He is the 2008 Formula One World Champion.

Hamilton was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. In December 1995, at the age of ten, he approached McLaren team principal Ron Dennis at the Autosport Awards ceremony and told him, "I want to race for you one day ... I want to race for McLaren."

 

Imunz 22,

You will love the F1 race, The noise and speed of those cars in person is incredible.



Ago

 

I marked this post and Ham won.... the Canadian GP..

 

For those of you who never knew Lewis Hamilton lived in Switzerland, and now lives in Monaco, here are his own words about it...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk6jspD6lwo[/ame] See 28:00

 

I meant at silverstone. This is a silverstone thread...

 

Yeh I know, it will be like history repeating itself...

 

My last bet was on Schumi this is my first wager on hambone so not sure where or how history is going to repeat itself other than me winning the bet again!

 

Seems anyone going is gonna need their wellies

Some of my "fondest" memories were wading through the mud on Sunday evening at Silverstone.....

Cheers,
Ian

 

Weather in flux again. Wet Fri and Sat. Sunday now is only 40% chance of rain. Im sure more changes are coming.

 

about 3 hours to P1

 

if anyone can post a link P1 feed I'd be very very appreciative

 

here you go

http://www.vipbox.tv/sports/formula-1.html

 

^^ thanks a million


my predictions

qualiy

1. vettle
2.lewis
3.kimi

race
1. alonso
2. lewis
3. kimi

 

didn't alonso or grosjean get through at lap 10 though?

 

I think it will be a soggy race, so will that play in the hands of the Ferrari?

 

Who knows? - When the timing sheet is showing a Caterham in 7th spot, anything could happen......

Seems like the rain is there to stay - For anyone attending, good luck getting out of the parking lots!

Cheers,
Ian

 

I'm attending Silverstone this weekend (staying in Banbury). I drove the rental car to the circuit today, got in early enough to avoid the huge traffic jam, but they parked me in one of the grass fields.

I went to leave the circuit at 2 pm, before FP2 - I'd had enough rain and mud for the day, and the F1 cars were not going to do much running because of the stupid tire rules. I was surprised to see 4 lanes of incoming traffic (occupying both incoming and outgoing lanes), at an absolute standstill. It seems that some of the campground fields were closed at the last minute, but they still had campers coming in from the motorway... and the traffic control on the motorway was letting them in. There was nowhere for those campers and motorhomes to go, and the cars were still wanting in too, so they were just directing them anywhere without regard.

Since I wasn't going to get out anytime soon, I wandered along the road and chatted to people. At 3 pm, some people had been stuck in the traffic jam for 7 hours already and were still nowhere close to being parked and able to get out to the trackside. The real bottleneck seemed to be a roundabout deep inside, where campers were trying to go all the way around to get to a campground that was closed, and nobody, NOBODY, was there for over an hour to try to sort out or direct traffic. Absolutely pathetic.

The Silverstone circuit operations can make all the excuses they want about the rain, but after being on the ground and talking to people who were stuck and seeing nothing happening to sort out the traffic, I can say it's all just excuses for total incompetence. Every traffic marshal I talked to had a different story, nobody was willing to do anything to fix it (I literally heard "that's not my job" several times when people suggested a traffic marshal should direct jammed traffic away from the roundabout to the exit).

At one point when the traffic guys were directing incoming traffic into the grass fields at 3:30 pm (as FP2 was ending), I figured that the field was soon going to be churned to mud and that I'd better moved my rental car, so I got it to the top of the field on a hard road and queued up. It was 5:30 pm before they finally got the queue of inbound cars (on the 2 outbound lanes) cleared up so that cars could start to leave the circuit.

Pure incompetence!

 

Yup sounds about right.

Anyway G, I do hope you manage to have a great time, am sure it will be worth it in the end.

 

My sympathies man!

They even knew it was coming; http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100948

OTOH, you at least got to see 'em a little! Sounds like many were (and remain) completely hosed.

We generally camped thru Monday to avoid it, but it seems even thats not possible right now.

I swore I'd only ever go there again via chopper - were they flying?

Hang in there, hopefully it'll get better.

Whats the name of the pub in Banbury? IIRC it was owned by an ex motorcycle champ?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Meant to note, while I understand your frustration, I don't think we can blame Pirelli here.

I posted a link to Hemberys comments in the practice thread - Even with unlimited tires they weren't gonna run much more than they did.

Cheers,
Ian

 

I saw that note in the other thread just now, thanks!

Don't get me wrong, I'm still really enjoying the weekend - I'm just getting all the classic Silverstone highlights in one go - rain, mud, screwed up traffic... I'm hoping the other classic Silverstone highlights (incredible, exciting races) is still to come! It's a fabulous experience, I've only been to Montreal GP before (this year, and in 08 and 10), but I've been reading about the British GP or watching it on TV for decades (it also is a bit of a special visit because my grandmother was born in Silverstone village in 1896, I am going to look up her family's house tomorrow).

My seat is in the Luffield B stands, and I get to see the end of the Wellington Straight into the new Luffield complex, so I may see some good action there on Sunday.

 

+1.

This, or there's a hotel which is about 1.5k walk away. Looks fancy as hell, and wouldn't be surprised if drivers where staying there, as I saw johnny herbert around there. Will probably be booked many months if not years ahead though.

 

Indeed! I assume you're alone? Please try and have fun and keep posting updates - We'll all live vicariously thru you!

FWIW, and spoken in best "old man" voice; "You shoulda been there in the 90's (or earlier) - We used to *dream* of 4 lane roads!" IIRC, it was around 2000 that the Pygmy convinced the Queen to upgrade the roads thereabouts - It's a *lot* better than it used to be. The weather has just completely ****ed 'em this year it seems.

Very cool. I lived directly opposite the pub in the village (next to the church) for about a season. My ex pretty much grew up there, and her parents lived there for *many* years - PM me the name and I'll see if the MIL knows her - Definitely possible.

Fingers very much crossed for you man! Good luck and well done for looking on the bright side!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Just a thought from many miles away from the bog ...
Isn't this all playing into the hands of the evil dwarf and his London GP aspirations? He's hated Silverstone for years. Remember the contract signed for Brands to host the GP race? This was about 8 years ago when Bernie was frustrated at the circuit. It seems that not much has improved. That traffic jam and mud are going to cost them the GP race if they can't get it together next year. After all, isn't rain in England somewhat expected? It was when I lived there.

 

+1

I went there once and it was a disaster. Weather was ok (heavy winds and cold, but no rain) but the traffic was a nightmare. And that was after they improved the road going there.

I think that dispute has been settled once the track owners caved and improved the infrastructure of the track. The London GP is really just a red herring Bernie threw to diffuse from the bribery case.

However this mess does play into Bernie's hands in the argument for having more city circuits in far away countries. It's pretty pathetic when the motherland of F1 racing isn't capable of getting its fans to the track on time. And it will be hard to argue against Bernie next time he pulls a Singapore, Valencia or NY GP out of the hat. It is not what true racing fans want, but it is what lets people at least come to the track on time.