World Series by Renault - Silverstone Jul 4/5

[strider]

Originally Posted by bella

i'm not surprised people had stuff nicked, myself and 2 other female friends were verbally abused by some lads on saturday because we wouldn't respond to "oi, darlin'".

They'd be potential Renault customers attracted by the genius marketing, then...

[grantp]

Was there some sort of incident on the M1 side of the A43?

I spoke to a couple of people at Donington today who had been heading for Silverstone, presumably quite early in the day since we were chatting at about 12:30, and got stuck at Towcester for so long that they abandoned and headed to Donington instead.

[bella]

i went past there at about 8.30 and it was clear, so if there was it happened after then?

[alan1302]

I was late in getting to the A43 from the A1 and at 9.40am the traffic was blocked for the entire 6 miles into Silverstone and took 2 hours to get there!! Still worth going though although I have no idea what the hold up was other than the volume of traffic.

The actual even itself was brilliant and it only took 20 mins to get out of the car park..better than the 3 hours it took in 2007 at Donnington! LOL

As for the grandstands there were a lot of full ones but I think a lot of the people who go to this even are not all motor sport fans and would rather look round the 'fun' parts than watch the actual races themselves.

It was very nice to see Nigel Mansell put in a few laps as well.

Alan

[grantp]

Originally Posted by alan1302

The actual even itself was brilliant and it only took 20 mins to get out of the car park..better than the 3 hours it took in 2007 at Donnington! LOL

But "PEAT" in a slightly earlier post mentioned it took 3 hours to get out of the car park today at Silverstone.

I guess it's just a matter of luck about where one ends up parked. Presumably last in (due to delays) often means an easier exit no matter which location one might be visiting.

[Joe Taylor]

Originally Posted by Peat

Well, i got in, in alright time, bit of a queue in. As always, super-rammed, lots of undesirable people about. My mate at Fortec told me that they have had loads of gear nicked (Wheels, batterys etc).

Racing wasnt particually great.

And getting home? wow. 3 hours to get out of the car-park...... It all got very heated...

I thought my hour and 20 mins in the carpark was bad enough. The problem seemed to be that all the attendants had gone home and most drivers seemed to think that creating as many lanes as possible was the way forward, only to be very surprised by the need to filter into single file for the exits. Getting in wasn't too bad though, definitely better than the Le Mans Series last September.

Can't say I noticed the population being more LCD than usual though, or perhaps I'm just trained to ignore the yobbish ones.

[GroupOfOne]

Had absolutely no problems getting in or out (from the Banbury side), arriving about 9.20 and leaving after the last race. Admittedly we were packed quite close to a side gate, but the queue seemed to look worse than it was, at least for us. Did notice not many men in high-vis in the car park though.

On another forum (non-motorsport) there's people complaining about it being too busy (and also not enough for kids to do, and too noisy for them haha), but I can't help feeling they just didn't move beyond the pit straight, as we were able to stretch out in the sunshine on the inside at Abbey, all quite pleasant really.

As for the racing, (I'm not the biggest fan of FRenault, I'll admit that), but the Eurocup race was quite good, WSR race was ok as interesting to see Turvey closing on Walker, although Pic seemed to be very in control, while the Megane and Clio races were as always entertaining.

I've thought this in other years about the event though, that there seem to be a lot of gaps in the timetable when there's no on-track activity. I suppose by being solely a Renault day, they cut down on potential other races, but at times yesterday there did seem to be big gaps with nothing happening. I'm obviously spoilt by going to F3 & BTCC meetings The Renault historic display was quite turgid this year, perhaps they could enliven this a little bit to fill some of the gaps for 2010.

[Rockmunky]

We got up the M1 and onto the A43 in near enough an hour, then got stuck in stupid traffic for another 80 minutes, due to two cars just stopped on the side of the road!

It was pretty packed, I was in Luffield A and both Luffield and Woodcote grandstands were packed thorughout.

Exiting through Buckingham was a good idea, we were home in just over the hour

[bella]

Originally Posted by grantp

I guess it's just a matter of luck about where one ends up parked. Presumably last in (due to delays) often means an easier exit no matter which location one might be visiting.

i think it's about knowing where to get parked as well as the luck element. i arrived at 8.30, and had no issues leaving the tarmac car park. my friends arrived half an hour later, ended in the field across the road from where i was (due to arriving from the m40 rather than the m1 admittedly), left at a similar time and were stuck there for a couple of hours. with silverstone it's all about exactly which car park. the fields are bedlam - the tarmac and gravel car parks seem to be a bit better because the exit routes are less open to abuse from more than one queue forming.

[Tim the Grey]

I have heard the mindless youfs were throwing stuff at cars? Was this during the racing, or at displays? Or just a nasty rumour?

[Peat]

Well, going by the marshall's forum, it appears some cretins were throwing stones onto the track.....

[bella]

saw a younger kid throw something onto the circuit as well at the first corner. the number of people taking pictures against the catch fencing was really surprising - there's nothing to tell them not to stand there though so it relies on common sense.

i've been to quite a few of these events across europe and there are never the behaviour problems there are at silverstone/donington.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Peat

Well, going by the marshall's forum, it appears some cretins were throwing stones onto the track.....

If that was the case (I certainly didn't see any of it thankfully) then there'll be an enquiry I would imagine.

I've already read some spot on comments from Joe and Bella. Saturday I got in to the tarmac'd parking (as I usually go to at Silverstone) and although I left strangely early in and out was zero problem.

Sunday timed it almost perfectly, in circa 9am just as queues were starting but whereas the filter from the A43 Brackley side worked, I could've zipped across to the other side of the cones and up the left side carriageway if I had thought about it (it's what I did on Saturday!!) doh!!!

Then it was, ah well grin and bear it 'ooh shall we go and have a look at Force India's premises?' we were bloody near enough. To be fair the walk from the filed over the bridge and across is nothing, it was the exit that took over an hour and I saw a handful of parking attendants walk out of a field at a time when they should've been doing the job. I can only assume that either a/ they weren't doing what they should've or b/ they weren't paid to do it at that time of day!

But hey if you go to an event that has a gate of knocking on 80-100 thousand people there will be queues we just have to accept it.

What I don't like is numerous examples of the human race at its finest lounging about getting in the way of true fans, but hang on isn't it worse at the Grand Prix?

On a lighter note I went into the pit lane during walkabout (that took me back a few years pleasantly) and went up to the Epsilon Euskadi bench where messrs Van Der Drift and Valles were sat joking away signing autographs. I said to Chris that I thought he was a really good driver which he was genuinely grateful about (even with Valles quipping 'pah i'm better, hahaha') but judging by the mare of a weekend he had, anyone who heard me say that to him and then looked for him on track must've wondered what the hell I was on about!!!

Apologies for the thesis there folks!!

[WSR Fan]

Glad to hear you guys all had a good time. I was supposed to go on Saturday (the only day of the weekend I could attend) but at work on Friday I stupidly decided to drop a rather large and heavy object onto my foot, resulting in a very swollen and painful foot that put me out of action for the weekend.

Still, there's always next year I suppose!

On the subject of queues, when I went last year we had no problems at all getting in and only about a 10-15 minute wait to get out afterwards. I guess it's just luck of the draw with those sort of things.

[bella]

Originally Posted by chunterer

To be fair the walk from the filed over the bridge and across is nothing, it was the exit that took over an hour and I saw a handful of parking attendants walk out of a field at a time when they should've been doing the job. I can only assume that either a/ they weren't doing what they should've or b/ they weren't paid to do it at that time of day!

i think the problem is that car park over the road is way too big for the size and numbers of exits. there comes a point with that sort of a queue to get out that the traffic marshals become useless - people just jump the queue or use space that has appeared where other cars have left and it's pretty much gridlock from then on. the only thing they can do from there is encourage people to park up and go back to the circuit for a bag of chips and a burger.

[Alex K]

Originally Posted by bella

saw a younger kid throw something onto the circuit as well at the first corner. the number of people taking pictures against the catch fencing was really surprising - there's nothing to tell them not to stand there though so it relies on common sense.

i've been to quite a few of these events across europe and there are never the behaviour problems there are at silverstone/donington.

Bella people get those tickets for free, big entertainment on Internet, press, telly, papers... year by year I find invitations from Renault UK in my post box (apparently they keep our datasin their databases) inviting me to visit again, I know myself two chaps who doesn't know who Nelsinho Piquet is, or even what was going to happen at the track, got tickets for free and went for an event. It's not that far away from Peterborough anywayz. With all that buzz, entertainment you can expect many (drunk) idiots, or just plain viewers who doesn't know how to watch races.

[bella]

yeah but my point is exactly the same things happen in europe, exactly the same people with a lack of knowledge of motorsport turn up, and even they know which is their arse and which is their elbow and don't act like complete clowns. it's not their fault they don't know, it's the circuits for not telling them. for some reason our newbie spectators are particularly... special compared to those who go to the other races.

[jondownunder]

The number of undesirables there always puts a bit of a dampener on my enjoyment of this meeting. Not surprised to hear teams had stuff stolen judging from some of the specimens I saw walking about swilling cans of Stella. I witnessed one asbo trying to sit in someone's camping chair only to be politely told to make like a tree... and saw numerous unsupervised children throwing stones towards the fences. I'm convinced that a certain element of our public are unique to these lands, and I would expect the 'newbies' in other WSR events to exercise a little more common sense and decorum...

From a selfish point of view I'd rather pay to go and be there with a handful of other geeks who know and care about what they're watching, but I'm not criticising Renault at all, as it's a great meeting for free, and no doubt it made for a good family day out for many new to the sport. The only real issue I had was with the historic parade, which as someone suggested was a bit of a damp squib compared to previous years, and more significantly didn't even do the full circuit (with no explanation from the commentators that I managed to hear). The entertainment value of the racing was a bit of a let-down compared to last year I thought, with nothing much to get overly excited about (in the single seaters at least), but Mansell's demo was a nice surprise, and the sheer speed of a modern F1 car never fails to amaze (even in the hands of Adam Khan and the rookie Martinez).

Sounds like I was very lucky with parking - got there early on both days (before 8am) so parked in the tarmac car park close to the pedestrian entrance. On Saturday stayed 'til the end and simply drove straight out, and on Sunday reluctantly left before the final FRUK race to beat the mass exodus, and only had to queue for around 15-20 mins before clearing the jams on the main approach/exit road. Much easier experience than Donington ever was. The field car parks did look a nightmare though, saw one guy moving cones and opening a dilapidated gate to create his own exit...

[JamesRamone]

Originally Posted by bella

yeah but my point is exactly the same things happen in europe, exactly the same people with a lack of knowledge of motorsport turn up, and even they know which is their arse and which is their elbow and don't act like complete clowns. it's not their fault they don't know, it's the circuits for not telling them. for some reason our newbie spectators are particularly... special compared to those who go to the other races.

Unfortunately from my experience in life as a whole, a large number of the general british public are just plain disrespectful.