Official Round 09 : British Grand Prix - Page 2 - 10-Tenths Motorsport Forum

**Born Racer** · 7 Jul 2012, 00:06

Great to see 80,000 fans turning out on a soggy Friday. Testament to British motorsport spirit.

sizzle · 7 Jul 2012, 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Great to see 80,000 fans turning out on a soggy Friday. Testament to British motorsport spirit.

Was that how many got in or was that the head count in the traffic jams

**Born Racer** · 7 Jul 2012, 09:06

And now I'm hearing about anyone who hasn't got a posh paddock pass getting turned away. Embarrassing by Silverstone because surely they could take measures to ensure this doesn't happen. Heavy rainfall in the days before a British race is not unexpected. If you're going to charge that much money, you should sort out the car parks.

Are they farm land or could Silverstone tarmac some of the car parks?

**garcon** · 7 Jul 2012, 10:16

After the 2000 debacle, Silverstone did turn what look like fairly large parking areas into hard standing / tarmac.

Unfortunately for the average punter at F1 weekend, most of those are full or reserved before they get a look in.

It's an insult to the fans for Richard Phillips to say he was almost crying yesterday. He should resign after this. Catastrophic failure to plan accordingly for entirely predictable conditions.

It also shows how little of the millions Silverstone has spent actually benefits the ordinary speccy.

If Spa and Nurburgring can get it right, why can't Silverstone?

**Peter Mallett** · 7 Jul 2012, 10:24

Interestingly, Spa has very little in the way of metalled parking, it does have gravel areas though.

henners88 · 7 Jul 2012, 10:51

I thought alot of the spectator parking areas at Silverstone didn't actually belong to the circuit? We've only known the weather was going to be this bad over the past 4 days so I would imagine its taken the organizers by surprise some what. I agree the general admission spectators pay alot of money for rather poor facilities, but the parking situation is always going to be bad in poor weather IMO.

**bella** · 7 Jul 2012, 10:54

the nurburgring has car parks that aren't all that different to spa too - they're predominantly just bare potholed ground with a very light dusting of massive gravel. the difference is in local landscape - it's far hillier, compared to the much flatter silverstone, thus making it far easier for rainwater to drain. much the same can be said for spa - the drainage is completely different, and you can see that when you get apocalyptic rain - it dries far quicker compared to silverstone because there's places for it to drain into. flat land doesn't drain well by nature. fwiw i find the main car park at spa next to eau rouge turns into big puddles and isn't very kind on cars that sit low to the ground. i nearly took the front spoiler off my car leaving it a month or so ago, and sods law says where you park in the dry turns into a giant puddle in the wet

i'm tending to side with silverstone on this - there really aren't too many things you can do. if your land sets you at an immediate disadvantage to others with a wetter climate then you're peeing in the wind. it doesn't help people who are stuck in hours of traffic or turned away from the circuit because there's nowhere for them to leave their cars though.

aside from landscaping and tarmacing every single car park there's not much they can do. with the best will in the world, unless you put tracking all over the entire field nothing will stop very soft ground churning up. or the cars sinking where they're parked.

**bjohnsonsmith** · 7 Jul 2012, 11:35

Great intro as ever frostie.

So Alonso's on pole and ticket holders are asked not to go to the GP.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18747889

Lancsbreaker · 7 Jul 2012, 12:42

I don't know about Alonso on pole....damn near into the wall.......!

Qualy red-flagged because too wet with 6 minutes to go.....another can of worms jsut been opened methinks......

**Born Racer** · 7 Jul 2012, 13:14

There doesn't seem to be consensus among F1 about what to do when red flagging like this. They red flagged it because of conditions and the lack of potential improvement in those conditions. Why therefore hang about not knowing whether that's it for the session or not?