Jonola14

THE GRAND PRIX

SO, I suppose most of you want to know how the British Grand Prix day was spent.

Usually, when my alarm clock goes off at some God awful hour in the morning, I want to beat the wretched thing to a pulp. Sunday morning, however, I was pleased that it woke me at 5.15am as I knew that, along with Mark, Silverstone beckoned and with it the VIP tickets that we had won.

We arrived at Finmere heliport (a field somewhere in Buckinghamshire) bang on 7am - the first to turn up - and we munched on sausage sandwiches in the hospitality tent until others arrived and we could group together before journeying to the track. This is when we met Jim - a mid-fifties gentleman and a rampant stalwart of the Grand Prix experience. Jim bundled us into his car, after taking a few moments to clear all the CRAP from inside, and off we went.

“Now then, navigator, where do we go?” he asked me, as if he couldn’t read the clearly marked signs at the side of the road. “Follow the signs for ‘Officials’” I recommended and we eventually found ourselves in the VIP parking area right next to the circuit. We noted the three Ferraris, brand new Porsches and countless AMG Mercedes everywhere and wandered towards our Paddock Club Grandstand. As we crossed the road, I couldn’t help but stare at a lovely Porsche Carrera 4 that was about to pass right in front of us. I stopped and looked directly at the driver to try and gauge his age. I reckoned that he was probably an IT guru about 35 years old and earning far too much money. The car drove by and we wandered on. “That was Gloria Hunniford in that Porsche” Jim said excitedly, “oh, I thought it was a bloke”. Sorry Gloria.

After having our passes stamped, we headed for the pit tour where we tottered about the pit lane for half an hour watching the teams practising their tyre changes and taking photos of everything. The first race began and we took our seats in the grandstand. Very noisy indeed. The commentator made us chuckle with terms such as “well, he ducked into the outside line which wasn’t very gentlemanly, then when they rounded the corner, he biffed him”.

We headed back to the pit lane for the drivers parade and it was at this point that we noted the Fosters girls. Two lines of beautiful women, waiting patiently for me to fully extend my zoom, so to speak, and photograph them again and again.

When we got back to the Renault F1 hospitality tent, the champagne was freely flowing and the lager was looking tempting. We noted the presence of Jeremy Clarkson and Vicki Butler-Henderson on the next door table to ours and we sat to listen to the pre-race briefing. Both drivers spoke to us, as well as the Technical expert, and special guest Ellen MacArthur also gave a speech, with Jim remarking that he’d like to “give her one”.

The Red Arrows did an impressive display and we smirked as we stood there in the Paddock Club Grandstand, watching the Arrows and sipping our free champagne (glasses held by the stem, obviously).

We took our seats in the grandstand and rose for the national anthem, I noted the presence of VBH sat three seats to my right and blessed her when she sneezed. The cars are very loud and very fast and the race was extremely exciting, particularly as Renault got into the lead off the start, only for that troublesome oik dressed in a kilt to slow everybody down and cost us top position. Have you ever tried photographing a vehicle that’s travelling at 150mph? Speed cameras can’t do it and now I know why.

The race ended (it goes a lot quicker when you’re actually there and it is by no means dull) and we sampled more champagne before heading off to the stage where Status Quo were to perform. Imagine our shock when Damon Hill comes on stage with his band, sporting long grey hair and a sparkly electric guitar and gets the crowd rocking, ish. We also saw Nigel Mansell and Jackie Stewart.

Alas, our time at Silverstone was to draw to a close and we got back to the heliport via a drunken Jim, spouting things such as “you haven’t lived if you haven’t experienced a Silverstone traffic jam” and “are we lost? If we follow the helicopters, they’ll lead us to where we need to be”.

It had been a great day - we’d seen Clarkson, VBH, Mansell, Damon Hill, Jackie Stewart, Tiff Needell, one of the Red Arrows pilots (so Mark says…), the two Renault drivers, Ellen MacArthur and Gloria Hunniford in the flesh, as well as Arnie, Shane Ritchie, Robson Green and Frankie Dettori on the tv coverage. The champagne and Fosters went down a treat, as did the gourmet lunch.

Not bad for taking a few photos…..