Grand Prix 2018 British Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

After trips to 4 continents & a sub continent Oceania, Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America in opening 8 races. whether its 4 in Europe & 1 in Asia or 3 in Europe & 2 in Asia depends where you classify Baku. We are home, & doesn't it feel nice, although everyone at the 11 teams will be delighted for the week off after the very draining im assuming 1st ever triple header & not only are we home but so are Formula 1 as everyone knows the 1st ever Formula 1 race took place in 1950 at this very circuit.

Definitely taking inspiration from cider_and_toast because i wouldnt dream of blatantly nicking ideas.;) LOL thought I might give a bit of history lesson as well. Silverstone does have 1 of the best circuits in the world but its layout was only stumbled upon by accident. because RAF Silverstone was opened in 1943 but in a classic world war 2 triangle layout which brought the perimiter roads. Also the 1st ever motorsport event to be held at the Silverstone airfield as it was then was a extremely low key event in 1947. & was organized by a guy called Maurice Geoghegan. he lived in nearby Silverstone village and was aware that the airfield was deserted had been for a while (of course world war had ended 2 years prior) so he & 11 other of his friends got to together & raced over the 2mile circuit, although his race was ended prematurely when a few sheep had wandered onto the airfield & Maurice hit 1 of the sheep, which killed the sheep & wrote the car off. in 1948 The Royal Automobile Club took a lease on the airfield, to set out a more formal racing circuit. they hired An ex-farmer,giving him just 2 months to turn the site from a wartime airfield & farm into a race track for the inaugural RAC International Grand Prix On the 2nd October 1948 an estimated 100,000 people flocked to see Luigi Villoresi beat a field of 22 in his Maserati. the 1st 2 races were organized & held on the World War 2 runways, with long straights separated by tight hairpin corners, the track only defined by Hay bales & ropes that also protected crops in the middle of the circuit. Then the royal automobile club decided to move racing to the perimeter track for 1950 & 1951 F1 races. 1950 1 of most known winners of an F1 grand prix. which even though it was widely known as the British GP Officially it was the 1950 Grand Prix d’Europe & it was significant occasion for another reason as King George VI & Queen Elizabeth (queen mum) were in attendance, which is still the only time a reigning monarch has attended a British motor race, then in 1951 BRDC took the lease from RAC who didnt want it & rest they say is history

The drivers are going to get a shock with this heatwave, because like Belgium all the drivers turn up here most years expecting cold & wet weather. but we have been experiencing temperatures in the high 20's for a few weeks & with the forecast it looks like it going to continue all next week as well. but im probally biased but this is 1 of highlights of the season up with Belgium & Monza. because such a great atmosphere with stands are packed from FP1 & full of fans with great British humour down the years. always some of the best celebrations because when Brit wins at Silverstone its on a par with a Ferrari win at Monza. But unfortunately this is the 50th & potentially penultimate British GP. very nearly the final in its traditional place in July, because Sean Bratches has all ready confirmed that it was the 1st choice for hosting the 1000th grand prix in April 2019. but then someone told him about Easter 2000 & he was put off for some reason haha but as i said this the penultimate British GP because of the Mexican standoff between Bernie's contract, Silverstone's owners & Liberty Media. after BRDC confirmed the rumours & triggered the break clause in their contract on day of the 2017 grand prix all because of unsustainable 5% fee escalator built into the deal by Bernie, after the Donington park fiasco. which means that what was a estimated cost of £12m - 2010, became £17m - 2017 17.9m - 2018 19m - 2019 ,& by 2026 if clause hadn't been invoked would've been in excess of 27m

thought i would give some historic Silverstone facts. that you may or may not know & I couldn't shoe horn in
  • sundays race will be 50th race on 14th different configuration
  • the priest that ran across the Silverstone track at Hangar Straight in 2003. ended up being jailed for 2 months
  • 1955 was the 1st time a british man won a the british gp
  • the startline has moved counties in 2011, as half the track is in Northamptonshire & half In Buckinghamshire
  • Silverstone Annually on Race day, annually becomes the busiest airport in Britain
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No further action, have stewards lost their minds. Considering it was a Fully premeditated move he was pulling away from Alonso exiting T4 then he slowed up going through T5 to wait for alonso & attacking him People have had grid pens for that in f2. See below. I dont understand why because like in both "a deliberate change of direction, adversely affecting another driver"

GP2 Bahrain: Sergio Canamasas penalised for qualifying swerves

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Well, after first practice, it appears that everything is back to normal (Mercedes over Ferrari over Red Bull over Haas). We will see how the rest sort themselves out.
 
Publius Cornelius Scipio . I’ve been to Oulton Park many, many years ago. I was very young. :embarrassed: I went with a boyfriend who was a car designer called Adrian Reynard. At the time he designed the cars for a guy who ran ( British Air Ferries ? Name Keegan ? I think. :thinking:

Keegans son was Rupert Keegan and he raced for the team. I think it was F3000? cant remember. It was the one down from F1. Anyway, It was very exciting. I was in the pits where the boards were hung out and Rupert was leading and the pit board kept saying ‘slow down’ . Other than that I cant remember much. :no:

Adrian Reynard was rather amazing, with his cars winning the first race in every series he entered (including Indy). His cars were a big deal over here in the U.S. I gather he lives in the U.S. now.

A nice Reynard career summery here: http://www.grandprix.com/people/adrian-reynard.html

So.....when are you going to write a "tell-all" book?
 
Pretty well as normal then for a Friday. Mercedes sweeping the board and Ferrari doing a bit of sandbagging with Red Bull snapping at their heels.
 
Yea, I suspect Mercedes will be ahead at the third practice tomorrow. Both Lewis Hamilton's times (1:27.487 vs 1:27.739) and Bottas times (1:27.854 vs 1.27:909) were slower than their first practice time, while both Vettel improved his time (1:27.998 vs 1:27..552) and did Raikonnen (1:28.218 vs 1:28.045). Hamilton's practice 1 time is still faster than Vettel's practice 2 time.
 
Jist amused myself by reading the 1965 British GP programme.

The winner that day won the Mervyn O'Gorman Trophy and £1000.

That's £19300 in todays prices.

The fastest practice lap on each day got the driver £100.

Maybe that's something they could bring back?

The Sunday timetable of events was:

10:30 - Race 1. International "Senior Service" Sports Car Race.

11:45 - Race 2. International "Britax" Touring Car Race

14:00 - Race 4 (no race 3 is listed?) - The 18th R.A.C. British Grand Prix.

17:45 - Race 5 - International Formula 3 Race.
 
A couple of years later I enquired about tickets for the weekend but was told that as a single person I could not use the parking facilities.
Makes sense though, there's a limited number of parking spaces and a single person driving to the circuit isn't a very environmentally friendly solution.
 
a single person driving to the circuit isn't a very environmentally friendly solution.

Sorry Clay but I can't let the irony of that one pass - you're going to a Formula One race, the most environmentally unfriendly sport (after oil well burning) in the world.
 
I have to say it’s a very politically correct move. Stupid, but politically correct. Why shouldn’t people go to a race alone.
 
Sorry Clay but I can't let the irony of that one pass - you're going to a Formula One race, the most environmentally unfriendly sport (after oil well burning) in the world.
I'm aware of that, but especially this fact should serve as a reason to not attend a Grand Prix alone but take public transport or make use of car sharing opportunities. Those also reducing congestion on the entry road to the Grand Prix and the number of parking space taken up.
 
oh yes that was really bad, 1 of worst ive seen for a while, weird one as the suspension just seemed to break under the braking load & espically when going into the gravel the car tried to tip. Hartley is having 1 of those seasons where if he didnt have bad luck he would have no luck
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