British GT 2020

[bella]

i think you can guarantee that silverstone in november is going to be wet

in all seriousness, i don’t think any of us in the paddock are happy about this from a personal perspective. but i’m really happy that you guys are going to be able to come back and experience the same delight i feel now every time someone fires up a car it’s going to be a great season, regardless of who is and isn’t going to turn up.

[Anyopenroad]

Silverstone still have no tickets at all on sale. Interesting reflection of differing priorities: Silverstone putting everything into two F1 races behind closed doors, MSV finding a way to get fans into events far earlier than expected. I say this without judgment, it’s just a stark difference that struck me.

[bella]

doubt it’s as intentional as putting everything into f1 and ignoring fans as much as it is just plain old doing it differently. two completely different organisations planning totally different seasons and managing very different staffing situations.

taking new ticket sales would help with the cashflow situation when it comes to refunds for cancelled events though.

[Truckosaurus]

Also, Silverstone has lots of extra areas and Grandstands that they need to work out how they are going to keep safe, it's probably a larger site than all of MSV's real estate put together....

(My guess would be no punters across the bridges or tunnel into the main paddock/in-field zone.)

[bella]

yeah, i agree, particularly about the potential for no centre access. it’s a big site which should theoretically make things easier for spectators to socially distance, but it presents its own issues in terms of suitable toilet facilities (donington are solving that with portaloos in the paddock at the moment which is a monster wtf, those things are about as clean as a council bin), keeping them cleaner than usual, different layouts of security staff maybe, rearranging catering facilities...

[GT6]

Originally Posted by Truckosaurus

Also, Silverstone has lots of extra areas and Grandstands that they need to work out how they are going to keep safe, it's probably a larger site than all of MSV's real estate put together....

(My guess would be no punters across the bridges or tunnel into the main paddock/in-field zone.)

Well if you can't do that then i think it would be difficult charging full price for the tickets, and it is the money the circuit needs.

[bella]

otoh, it’s costing them money to adapt to the new normal. where’s that money going to come from?

[justracing]

Originally Posted by bella

i think you can guarantee that silverstone in november is going to be wet

Probably wet and certainly cold. I've done the Walter Hayes meeting several times and you can leave the sun cream at home!

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by bella

doubt it’s as intentional as putting everything into f1 and ignoring fans as much as it is just plain old doing it differently. two completely different organisations planning totally different seasons and managing very different staffing situations.

For sure. Like I said, no judgement. Just, as you describe, very different business models

[crmalcolm]

Error posted in wrong thread

[bella]

Originally Posted by justracing

Probably wet and certainly cold. I've done the Walter Hayes meeting several times and you can leave the sun cream at home!

you still get track face but it’s definitely wind burn season not sun burn

[Bcarr6]

Optimum Motorsport swap the aussie pair of Martin Berry & Nick Foster for young Mclaren factory drivers Lewis Proctor and Ollie Wilkinson (in addition to Ollies GTWC campaign)

They also confirmed both GT4 Mclarens are out of the season

[Bcarr6]

Down to 22 cars for the opener from 35.

Pretty huge hit, big shame for the series having landed one of the biggest GT3 entries in the series history.

There will be some additional race by race entries later in the season to boost things a little.

I’m sure we will still see good racing as always

[S griffin]

While it’s a massive shame to lose a number of entries, I feel 22 should be sufficient enough.

[Aysedasi]

It's enough for a good race, but that's a lot of entries to lose.

[ascarracinguk]

Well that’s social distancing gone out of the window...people really can’t help themselves can they

[bella]

i’ve just looked down the paddock and everybody i can see unable to socially distance and/or not smoking, drinking or eating is wearing a mask. so i’d say there’s patchy adherance to the rules but generally people are trying their best.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by bella

i’ve just looked down the paddock and everybody i can see unable to socially distance and/or not smoking, drinking or eating is wearing a mask. so i’d say there’s patchy adherance to the rules but generally people are trying their best.

Agreed, it's patchy.
Inside of Dentons seems to be where adherence to the guidelines has been abandoned.

[tux]

Appreciate there are less track staff but to spend the last 20 minutes under SC is farcical imo.

[JTN358AT]

Well, it was more than twenty minutes and they never got the race on. Recovery has always been something of a weak point at Oulton. They never seemed to have the equipment or know how to get it done fast. Donington, would have had that cleared up in ten minutes tops.

Any race that ends under a safety car is a farce. A red flag and safety car start would have been fine, what happened was not, yet happens most meetings at Oulton. For years BGT, has been blighted by poor recovery at Oulton. Damn shame.

[dwh43scale]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Agreed, it's patchy.
Inside of Dentons seems to be where adherence to the guidelines has been abandoned.

I have been to 8 "day visitor experiences" in the last four weekends at MSV venues and Mallory. Today at Oulton Park was the busiest; by contrast, Mallory yesterday for EMRA bikes and sidecars was very quiet on the visitor front and in some cases 20m distancing would have been easily possible !

Generally, the visitors seem to have been distancing to a reasonable extent, if not a full 2min every case, but certainly no worse than many shops, or perhaps more saliently, in crowds celebrating football team triumphs, at raves or on trains to the coast.

Dentons did look busy with all the cars parked behind but viewing from the other side of the track, it looked as if many were in smallish, presumably family / related groupings.

On the racing front, great to hear a field of GTs again but the last quarter of the second race was a little, shall we say, frustrating for the spectators and no doubt the drivers too.

[SnoodyMcFlude]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Well that’s social distancing gone out of the window...people really can’t help themselves can they

I was there this weekend and actually on the whole the social distancing was considerably better than any supermarket I've been in over the last few months. I sat at Cascades today, which was fairly busy, and had a nice 6ft perimeter all round me, as did most other people as far as I could tell. Toilets have sanitiser outside for people to use on the way in (which most did) and generally people being sensible. The bar had a one way system, markings on the floor, masks to be worn etc. There were a few of the Prosecco crowd and the 'caps on backwards' Corsa driving types who seemed to have a fairly large 'support bubble' judging by how many of them grouped, but they were easily avoided.

Was a really good weekend and even the poor last race didn't spoil it for me. Did look like they were struggling to load the Aston and I assume the McLaren had a gearbox issue or something which meant they needed the crane to lift it. Not completely sure why they decided to concentrate on recovering the Supra which had been in the same spot for a number of laps without issue, was obvious with 3 cars involved in the incident that it was going to be tight to get any meaningful green flag racing....but I wasn't on the radio, nor at any of the stranded cars, so my opinion means squat and there would've been reasons decisions were made and things took time.

[SnoodyMcFlude]

Originally Posted by JTN358AT

Any race that ends under a safety car is a farce. A red flag and safety car start would have been fine, what happened was not, yet happens most meetings at Oulton. For years BGT, has been blighted by poor recovery at Oulton. Damn shame.

In retrospect, yes, but on the face of it you'd have thought 2 of the cars could easily have been dragged. On the latter point, does Oulton have a curfew? I assume that no track action until 12pm was due to local constraints (presumably a church, usually seems to be that).

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Well that’s social distancing gone out of the window...people really can’t help themselves can they

Relax man its not a big deal. COVID only affects a tiny portion of the population. Thats been well known for a while now.

Saw British GT race on youtube..normally don't watch it but it was pretty good and I enjoyed it more than the ADAC GT Master event this weekend.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

Relax man its not a big deal. COVID only affects a tiny portion of the population. Thats been well known for a while now.

Jesus, how can you “get it” so little?