British Grand Prix 2012, Silverstone - Race 9/20

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:27

knip said:
Jake Humphreys twitter

Jake fuelling the fire. GA admission is different to GA parking. A lot of those with GA admission will have Park and Ride passes which will be fine.

I expect them to tell anyone with GA parking to go to a Park and Ride site instead. If not then I would just go to a P&R site anyway and argue your case.

Skillmister · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:32

Skeeter said:
The comentators at the track were pointing out the risk vs. reward thing. After doing a bunch of laps in the morning there was very little that the drivers could learn from more wet laps in the afternoon, but there was a massive potential for them to stuff it in the wall. They don't test new parts in the rain as the track is to unpredictable to get accurate enough results, so if they are happy with their wet setup, it makes more sense to sit it out and not risk a crash, regardless of how many tyres they have.

I don't deny the risk vs reward thing. I'm just pointing out it's the drivers that are apparently blaming the lack of tyres. If some are citing that as their reason then that's their reason, regardless of risk.

knip · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:33

Silverstone are strongly encouraging fans with public car parking on Saturday not to come to Silverstone tomorrow, 7 July. Unless spectators have PRE-BOOKED park and ride or are in local campsites and able to walk to the circuit we strongly advise that they do not attend the qualifying day of the 2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix.

The reasons we have taken this action is due to the fact that we have lost some of our car parks today in the awful wet weather that we have suffered over the last weeks, and, in particularly, the last 36 hours. We must do our very best to protect as much of our car parking as possible ahead of Sunday.

Fans will be refunded for any unused Friday or Saturday tickets and full details on how this will be handled will be communicated early next week.

Not like they didn't know in advance it was going to rain!

Skillmister · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:34

Silverstone are strongly encouraging fans with public car parking on Saturday not to come to Silverstone tomorrow, 7 July. Unless spectators have PRE-BOOKED park and ride or are in local campsites and able to walk to the circuit we strongly advise that they do not attend the qualifying day of the 2012 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix.

Duke · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:34

Glad you wrote all that to save me doing it Skeeter

Got back about 8pm, what a great day of racing

Very muddy already today, going to be very slippy tomorrow and Sunday if it continues to rain.

[TW]Taggart · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:35

Skeeter said:
I'm going to sail in here and in fear of being flamed, defend the car parking situation.

For Saturday and Sunday the park and rides are excellent. The problem is just the Friday and the open parking at the site.

...More important bits...

Of course Silverstone circuit need to buy those fields and pave them, but I have been to Silverstone numerous times on a Friday in the rain and never had these issues with the exact same setup in place. They could also implement the Park and Rides on a Friday too.

^^^ this

Why on earth would you plan to turn up to an event after it started. Going to GP's is about getting up at 5am to get track side at 7/8 ready for all the support races/quali and F1.

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:35

Yep, might be the drivers reason, but it isn't going to stop the team bosses telling them to stay in the pits though.

More tyres would give the opportunity for more running, but I seriously doubt any of them would take it.

But taking a step back, the tyre allocation definitely needs to be looked at. With both dry and wet tyres the teams simply don't have enough.

knip · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:38

[TW]Taggart;22291702 said:
^^^ this

Why on earth would you plan to turn up to an event after it started. Going to GP's is about getting up at 5am to get track side at 7/8 ready for all the support races/quali and F1.

The year I went, I was up at 3am, and trackside just after 5am, never seen that many people awake and eating bacon sandwiches before in my life!

Nexus · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:39

Skeeter said:
*snip*

I'm going to have to disagree with you on quite a lot of that.

Firstly, we had the wettest June on record, so they must have been well aware that the grass car parks might be a problem, so why did they not start planning for it earlier? Get some gravel, wooded planks, duck boards. Why did they only start taking action yesterday afternoon? Their contingency plan clearly wasn't very well thought out.

I also don't think you can start blaming people for poor planning. As I said myself, I go every year and I left what would usually be plenty of time for a Friday.

I personally didn't see much in the way of people abandoning their cars, I was actually quite angry when Silverstone Radio tried to suggest that today's problems were all due to that. You have to also remember that people were stuck for hours, I had breakfast at 7am and wasb't able to get any food until 5:30pm, not to mention people needed to use the toilet as well.

One aspect I especially thought was poor was the marshalling, however, that is something I've been critical of in the past, because they don't have enough of them and many are just not interested in.

When exiting the A43, there was the traffic coming from the other direction and over the bridge. Here you should have had Marshalls controlling the traffic to make sure that the traffic was coming equally from each direction. Same goes for the circuits inside the roundabout, but they had nobody.

It's also no good just saying that is a Friday issue, the fact that they are now asking 20,000 people not come and giving refunds demonstrates that they are in a critical condition and struggling to handle it. Everyone knows that they need to be there when the Car Parks open tomorrow, or not bother at all, thus its going to be crazy busy, even if you are always there on opening.

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:41

Silverstone don't own those fields.

Is it the circuits fault that it rained? Should we be blaming them for the floods elsewhere in the country too?

It was issues caused by bad weather, that were then massively exaggerated by the way people failed to deal with it. Shown by the fact I had zero issues at all, and overall a very good day.

And they haven't said you can't go tomorrow. Just that if you do, you might get stuck in a field. So what? Bring some food and chill out in your car after Qualifying. Or stay in the track and see the entertainment that is on the main stage well into the evening.

If people put as much effort into solving problems as they did into moaning about them things would go much smoother.

Nexus · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:41

Skeeter said:
Well obviously. How do they know if you went into the track for a minute or all day?

Well I will be ringing them to argue my case.
Plus I've got one ticket that was unused anyways.

Nexus · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:42

Skeeter said:
Silverstone don't own those fields.

That's not what the Official Spokesperson said.

They said they aren't allowed to tarmac them due to them being ancient protected sites.

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:52

Nexus said:
They said they aren't allowed to tarmac them due to them being ancient protected sites.

Then I appear to have restyled my GF's car in 'Ancient Protected Site Brown'

Nexus · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:53

Skeeter said:
Silverstone don't own those fields.

Is it the circuits fault that it rained? Should we be blaming them for the floods elsewhere in the country too?

It was issues caused by bad weather, that were then massively exaggerated by the way people failed to deal with it. Shown by the fact I had zero issues at all, and overall a very good day.

And they haven't said you can't go tomorrow. Just that if you do, you might get stuck in a field. So what? Bring some food and chill out in your car after Qualifying. Or stay in the track and see the entertainment that is on the main stage well into the evening.

If people put as much effort into solving problems as they did into moaning about them things would go much smoother.

I personally feel you are taking a bit of a high and mighty attitude because you went in very early and are of the opinion you know better because you did.

Of course its not their fault it rained, its silly to even suggest that. However not being prepared for it when they knew it was very wet is inexcusable.

While you may have had no issues, I was sat in a car for 10 hours, as were many others. I did not even have the option to park in a muddy field because they weren't letting people into the Car Parks! As I already said, I go every year, I have no intention of running away as soon as the F1 finishes, however its no good saying that when you can't even get in there.

Will you still be saying the same tomorrow if you spend all day stuck in a queue of traffic because you can't get into a car park?

Nexus · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:58

I would also just add that Silverstone's latest official statement even acknowledges they know its been wet for weeks on their car parks, so again, where was the planning?

The reasons we have taken this action is due to the fact that we have lost some of our car parks today in the awful wet weather that we have suffered over the last weeks, and, in particularly, the last 36 hours. We must do our very best to protect as much of our car parking as possible ahead of Sunday.

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 20:58

No, because I'm not going tomorrow

And why is it high and mighty simply because I planned well, knowing that this was the biggest crowd they were ever expecting for a British GP, and accept that the issues caused by the weather aren't their fault?

Things were bad today because of freak weather and there was nothing they could do, so they are trying to avoid it happening again tomorrow, and are refunding anyone who either can't or doesn't even attempt to get in. It's all in all fairly decent of them I think. They could have said nothing, let you all get stuck tomorrow, and then refused refunds.

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 21:00

On a lighter note:

GF's gonna kill me

knip · 6 Jul 2012 at 21:05

Skeeter said:
On a lighter note:

GF's gonna kill me

See there's part of me that would honestly love to get my car that filthy, as long as I knew for sure i'd make it out of the field with the car in one piece.

~Mike~ · 6 Jul 2012 at 21:06

You wern't meant to go rallying, you better get cleaning that.

Has she seen it yet?

Skeeter · 6 Jul 2012 at 21:08

Not yet. Picking her up from the station at 10, so hopefully it will be dark

Nah she's ok as long as I clean it, which I will tomorrow. I have warned her by sending her a text saying "I might have got Mitzy a bit dirty"...

The restyling job that was done to the white Civic that left in front of us was frankly epic too!