I have attended Silverstone for the last seven years and I have noticed a steady decline in ‘outside track’ entertainment for fans. There used to be stands for all teams but now there are only merchandise stalls that all sell the same things.

That said, if you have the experience and know the tricks you can find ways of entertaining yourself. For example if you take a 10 minute walk to from the Copse stand to the nearby Whittlebury Hall Hotel & Golf Club then you will meet most drivers without having to fight through crowds. I went at 7pm on the Saturday night and stood right outside the hotel door. From this location I obtained the autographs of Alonso, Massa, Liutzi, Domenicali, Heidfeld, both Virgin drivers and both renault drivers. Also, make sure you go into the centre of the circuit as soon as they open it up. Dont bother going to the after race party straight away, instead go towards the Paddock Shop (behind the pit complex) and get autographs/shake hands with some legends. I did this and managed to obtain photos and autographs from 9 drivers, Amir Khan, Sir Jackie Stewart, Michael Essien, Most team principals, Charlie Whiting, and wait for it……….James Allen! Fantastic.
Heres another trick, go to the Whittlebury Hall Hotel, and check out the supercars in the carpark. Those with Paddock passes in the window usually belong to the teams and drivers. Read the passes and you will see which car belongs to which driver. Then when the centre of the track opens up, go to the same car, and wait for your desired driver to turn up. This way you can almost guarantee getting a photo with your favourite driver, and there is no other fan spoiling the shot.
Anyway, best do some work now.

Keep up the good work James, and thanks again for my autograph.

My wife bought me tickets for our wedding anniversary and got one for my friend who wasnt as mad on F1 but my wife thought I shouldn’t go alone (she knows me well)

The stand was Luffield

Saturday morning came and I sat with bacon rolls at home in Scotland watching the qualifying with my bags all packed in the car, all I had to do was watch the qualy then jump in the car for the 6 hour drive to Northampton.

What I hadn’t done was book any accommodation for us thinking we would find a B&B when I arrive about 9pm…. (no chance it turns out)

We got to Northampton and everywhere was booked, we felt a bit silly as we should have thought it would be

Thinking we would sleep in the car, we stopped at a Little Chef a few miles from Silverstone for coffee.

The waitress came over with out coffee’s then about 20 mins later came over with more by mistake, I asked her if she knew of any hotels or B&B that might have a spare room to book, she said no chance, everywhere would have been boked up months prior…

Then she asked for my mobile, she said if she could use my mobile she would phone her mum and see if we could stay in their spare room!

I replied saying not to be silly ou can’t invite 2 strange guys (not that we were strange lol) into their home, we would just sleep in the car…..but she insisted… so she phoned.

She came back saying, if we didn’t mind one of us having to sleep on the floor, then we could stay with them…. I thought she was mad but she insisted so she gave us directions…. it was litterly just down the road and up a little street, and her mum was standing at the front door waving for us, a cute little cottage/farm house.

In we went, they made us so welcome and showed us to our room. We were sooo thankful

In the morning we had cooked breakfast and coffee!!! (I thought I was dreaming)

Asking for directions to the circuit she explained they lived right across the road from the entrance which leads right up to Lufield stands, we could leave our car outside their house. We walked right in, watched the FP warmups, support race, ad I wandered right around the circuit.

Race finished, Coulthard won right after his plane crash.

We left the circuit, just a 5 minute walk out (while everyone was stuck in mud) jumped in the car and missed all the traffic. Got home to Scotland, and on the news people were still stuck getting out, I was home just in time to watch the highlights!

Was the best weekend ever, and I am so thankful to that family who put us up!

We all love football and have a kick around after going to watch a game…heh someone could even buy some gloves an go between the posts…but can we try to fit a wheel to a car in 4 secs? Can we try lift one of those fuel rigs and get it on first go? Can we all have a go on a genuine F1 simulator? I guess not. I did see some free arcade machines behind stowe to be fair, but it was exactly that, an arcade machine. This really is where we need to see an improvement.

On a good note, next year F1 gets its own pitlane, so maybe therefore the BRDC take the opportunity to allow access to the support race paddock, so we can see the GP2, GP3, PCC cars, drivers and teams from nearby.

F1 at Silverstone is a festival and its a shame that FOTA are not bringing anything to the onsite facilities. Only Santander and Vodafone really bothered. Each team should without a doubt have a car stand with various bits to do at each one. Fair enough new entrants may struggle for the first year such as Hispania.

Even mclaren couldn’t be bothered to bring a stand this year. Bridgestone didn’t bother and it was just Santander with the same 2004 Ferrari that Bridgestone had and last years mclaren.

BMW made an image straight away with starting with the pitlane park. Its a shame that silverstone is spending all this money and the teams cant be bothered to bring more to the fans when at the track.

How hard is it for Red Bull to get a couple of models and have go out with red bull either selling or freebies.

Heck Fosters had dudes going around the track with barrels on there back selling beer back in the day. Even after they went they still had an unbranded guy walking around Abbey.

Your blog has become my main resource for unbiased F1 related news, please keep up the good work James!

The information is there however the usage is very poor from FOM. Being in 2010 and having the F1 as the most hi-tech sport of the planet is just embarrassing.

But how did Cosworth have an extra 15hp? What happened to the engine freeze?