Grand Prix Rejects

Heads-Up!
I know from the past here that some members run into trouble when opening/viewing threads holding many images, but this is really the idea of this one.
Much like the Spectators!! Review your circuit visits! thread, only not reviewing the circuit but the actual experience.

Photos and/or videos from everyones motorsport travels to share. I'd very much like to see others (watka & diniz from Silverstone next week?, dr-baker from Donington this week?), as well as share my own. So if your device can not handle multiple images, hit the back button

I went to the most recent two-day test on 13 & 14 May at Catalunya and shot some videos. And in the spirit of true rejectdom, I forgot my recently acquired Full HD50x zoom videocamera at home and had to settle for my compact camera 12.2MP 3x zoom.
But I do take comfort in that Mazzacane, Takagi and Deletraz would all have probably done the same thing. They raced lesser cars and I had to use a lesser camera. I am positive all rejects have lesser cameras!

Chilton on his way to set the fastest lap of the day (look at that amazing car control, pure driving):
http://youtu.be/8WssskOkk50

Kobayashi before he decided to smash his CT05 into the barriers at T3
a bit later on in the day:
http://youtu.be/FTHcqTvoWU4

Susie Wolff 1 & 2:
http://youtu.be/g8j-LqIPSYY
http://youtu.be/YwW0Wsahdzo
Even Youtube was impressed by Susie's performance, hence the 'W0W' in the link.

Pic going incredibly fast:
http://youtu.be/b3AuII9lGS8

Bianchi 1, 2 & 3:
http://youtu.be/4wK3VKPt3bU almost losing the rear at T13
http://youtu.be/AFPy8SMp2Ls through T10-16 + Rosberg
http://youtu.be/q6s58hhtDo0

Raikkonen T10-15:
http://youtu.be/IY1ke-4dBn8
http://youtu.be/e8l8TQTTRoI

I felt a bit 'artsy', so I shot Raikkonen, Bianchi, Gutierrez & Vandoorne in black and white:
http://youtu.be/CCy3sRQeer0 John Frankenheimer eat your heart out.
there are more related vids at YT

All highly rejectful videos indeed.

I was Trulli blown away by the sound from the Sauber. I instantly fell in love with that sound, it sounded as if it was a V8 still inside the C33
when it came roaring down the back straight between T9-10. I don't know how Eric Gandelin did it, but no other car sounded like the Sauber. The high pitch it let out
was amazing and I said to myself more than once 'it still sounds like a V8'.
My dad felt the RB10 had the best sound of the lot, but I disagreed. The RB10's Renault Energy F1-2014 V6 turbo gave off way too many 'electrical
sounds' for my taste. It was as if they had put ten vaccum cleaners under the chassis.

Speaking of him, tuck your shirt in dad!

Can you believe my dad turns 65 in October? He resembles a dealer off the streets of Harlem or Brooklyn with that hoodie on.
And though both of us have been watching the Grand Prix's for close to twenty years, I still sometimes have to correct him on what driver or what car just drove past.
And yes, that is a Takuma Sato #22 Super Aguri F1 Team cap, I had to represent! I had a hard time choosing if I should go with the white Super Aguri cap
or the red one. The latter won in the end.
And being the reject that I am, I noticed the far too common trait amongst our fellow 'casual fans', people were actually laughing
and pointing at Maldonado and Chilton as they drove by. At first I thought 'hey!, they are happy and honored to see them out on track',
as I surely was.
But regretfully it turned out to be laughter of scorn. I died a bit inside each time. Heretics!

Best looking livery of all eleven cars was the MR03, no contest. Damn that car looked incredible in real life. And I'm not just saying that because King Chilton sat in it.
That neon red color just lit up the entire track during that grey-clouded Tuesday sky.
Least good looking livery; the MP4-29. Horrible. What a horrific livery, so bland, dull and uninspired. I'm sorry to you McLaren fans, but even the Sauber looked great when compared to the McLaren.

On the Wednesday a bit past 10am, Rachel Brookes and her crew shot a segment for Sky on the nervousness of the cars on a green track, right in front of me at T12.
I waited until they were done and said to Rachel that she does a great job at Sky, she said thanks and wondered in amazement if I had come only
for the test? I said 'yeah, of course', and 'my sister lives nearby anyway'. 'Great choice' she replied.
Ted and Rachel really are the best over at Sky Sports, in my opinion.




Having taken my own truck license in 2013 I immediately dreamt of what it would be like to drive these beauties,
they were all parked outside the circuit at T9:


Dad in the background, still with that non-tucked-in shirt and hoodie.








On the Tuesday while leaving the circuit, there was an accident just next to the team trucks parking lot:


Ambulance personnel carried a guy out on a stretcher wearing a neck brace.
Upon returning the next day, this is what I saw at the scene of the crash:




Must have been a hell of a crash. Can't say I'm surprised, though, I've noticed by having been to Circuit Catalunya four times now
that people drive like idiots outside of the circuit.


Back home, my dad had a surprise for me. He had cleaned out the storage in the cellar and found some really old christmas presents I got in '88 at the age of five. The Scalextric 1986 Canon Williams Honda FW11 #5 of Nigel Mansell and the 1986 John Player Special Team Lotus Renault 98T #11 of Johnny Dumfries. The receipt was still there in one of the boxes! For 1988 they were pretty expensive, I must say. And why does Dumfries wear Senna's helmet?



I had completely forgotten playing with these as a kid and that my roots to Formula 1 went that far back, the earliest memories I have of watching F1 are from the nineties.

On the return flight home I started reading this recently aquired autobiography;

I got to page 66 before I stopped and I can't say it was a riveting read, but some parts were interesting.
I really need to finish it one of these days (along with many more books lying around).

Well, I have some photos I have taken at various motorsport events scattered in several different threads, but having this thread is a good idea. I went to the Formula E thread and promised some photos there before seeing thios thread, so may split some photos between the two?

This thread reminds me that I have a load of photos to upload to my flickr from Autosport International which was all the way back in January.

EDIT:
I just remembered that I never took any photos from Thruxton because my iPod Touch had been nicked

Nice pics and vids Jocke! I won't be at Silverstone next week btw, I'd totally forgotten about it to be honest!

I wish I could be at Silverstone next week, if only to see a Lotus on 18" rims, but alas! 'Tis not to be.

I'll upload some of my 300 or so FE pictures tomorrow - once I have recharged my camera battery again...

It's not much of a travel really, but it was a 300+ mile drive from here so here's a few of my pics from the 2012 British GP

https://www.flickr.com/photos/garyc85/s ... 542388746/

Right then, post-British GP debrief time, now that I've recovered fully and have uploaded my best pictures to Flickr. Here's some of my thoughts and experiences from this year if anyone else was considering doing it in future.

For the second year in a row I did the full 5 nights of camping with three mates at Silverstone Woodlands, which in terms of value for money, ease and comfort, is hands down the best way to go. All in the tickets were a little over £240, that is a three day General Admission ticket to the circuit, and the camping as well. It might sound steep, but for five nights of camping plus three full days of on track action and plenty of stuff around it, I have to say, we F1 fans have it better than I think we like to make out sometimes. Yes the food is over-priced and let's not get started on the merchandise, but if you plan it properly, buy as much of your food and booze beforehand from your supermarket of choice, then you don't actually have to spend that much more once you're in.

First of all - Silverstone Woodlands. I haven't camped anywhere else when at the GP so can't compare different sites, but I have to say the organisation, facilities and services and entertainment on offer were superb. The pub does pints of Carlsberg for £3-something, there's a shop that whilst expensive, sells everything you might need whilst camping, and there's a load of food vans, merchandise stalls and entertainment too. They have a big screen outside the pub which showed both Wimbledon, and the World Cup matches that were on, with plenty of room to either sit on the grass or on the picnic benches provided. They have live music on most of the nights, as well as screenings of films like the original 1969 Italian Job and Rush as well. Race to the Finish had a stand there, where I got myself a Spyker wheelnut to add to the Williams one I bought last year and which still had the grease inside it. If you don't fancy the £50+ prices of the current team merchandise, they are a great place to pick up slightly older stuff, in particular reject teams - they had Spyker, Super Aguri, Virgin/Marussia and Caterham stuff all there in good supply, and a t shirt or polo would set you back around £15 I'd say. I went and bought myself a brand new Williams top which was £65 but I'll get onto that later...



Last year we were able to sneak into the circuit on the Wednesday afternoon and watch the team trucks being unloaded from the comfort of the pit straight grandstand! This year we weren't so lucky, but it didn't matter as the circuit was officially open on the Thursday for the pit lane walks. There were two sessions, one from 10am and one from 4pm, both lasting for two hours. We did the first one as the later one overlapped with Sky filming their F1 Show and we wanted to be in the stand for that too. We got to the gate at about 8.30am and there were already about 60 or 70 people in front of us queueing to get in. By the time they started letting us across the track at Abbey to walk up the pit lane backwards, the queue must have been at least half a mile long. If there's just one thing you have to keep in mind when doing the British GP, it's to make sure you get yourself to things with plenty of time in hand otherwise you'll miss out. That goes for arriving at the campsite (we aim for early Wednesday morning so you're not miles away from the toilets and showers), and then anything that will involve a queue.

Back to the pit lane walk though, and the access was really good - no screens in front of any of the garages, you could see all the cars being built up, the bodywork out in front of the garages, and the Williams drivers all made an appearance (yes, I saw and photographed Susie dr-baker!) - emerging from the garage to do their track walk I believe. You'd be lucky to get an autograph, even less so a photo with a driver, but nonetheless the access was great and something I'd definitely do again. We spent about 45 minutes working our way up the pit lane and got loads of photos. It was harder to get the shots at the more popular teams' garages but being towards the front of the queue meant it wasn't too rammed so there was still enough space. I suspect if we'd been at a later time in the session it would have been nigh on impossible to get any clear photos of the garages.

Lotus Pit Garage by Crackers250, on Flickr

Caterham Pit Garage by Crackers250, on Flickr



Later on in the day we went and attended the live filming of the Sky F1 Show on the pit straight again, though didn't get on the telly this time! The atmosphere is great with loads of banter and chanting flying about, and to be fair the Sky staff and presenters were really receptive to the fans and joined in. It's great for a good laugh, and we got to see loads of the drivers being interviewed and then taking penalty kicks as part of a feature relating to the World Cup. It was noticeable that during the BBC's post race show in the pit lane that they were far less receptive to the fans than Sky were. There were some acknowledgement but I felt it was far more uptight and serious than Sky's effort which was a bit of a shame. Again, we got to the Sky filming over an hour before it properly started at 6pm, and even at that point most of the seats were filling up.

Lewis Hamilton, 2014 British GP Sky Sports F1 Show by Crackers250, on Flickr

Martin Brundle, 2014 British GP Sky Sports F1 Show by Crackers250, on Flickr

Friday saw the start of on-track action, and we made the most of our General Admission tickets which allowed us into most of the grandstands on the Friday only. The only two that I knew of that we weren't allowed in were the main covered curved Club grandstand and the covered Abbey stand at the end of the pit straight. We sat in the pit straight covered stand for FP1 which was pretty full by the time the session got going, and got a great view of the cars squirming on the exit of club, putting the power down for the straight. You can also see plenty of pit lane action from there as well, and I snapped both Massa and Wolff's cars being returned on the back of trucks during the red flag period after Felipe's crash.

Susie Wolff, Williams-Mercedes FW36 by Crackers250, on Flickr

The Result of the Williams Team's FP1 Session by Crackers250, on Flickr

Giedo van der Garde, Sauber-Ferrari C33 by Crackers250, on Flickr

Over the rest of the day we moved around to different places and sat in the Village B grandstand for the GP2 practice session. The wind was particularly strong there, although it was a fairly windy day in general, and at Silverstone, with it largely as flat as a pancake, those conditions can be quite exacerbated!

Jolyon Palmer, DAMS by Crackers250, on Flickr

And for the F1 FP2 session we parked in the covered Luffield stand where I was able to get some more good photos, including when Grosjean took a trip through the gravel. Again, by the time the session was underway, the grandstand was pretty much completely full. Try getting attendances like that Abu Dhabi! Or China! Or Bahrain! etc etc...

Nico Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes VJM07 by Crackers250, on Flickr

Romain Grosjean, Lotus-Renault E22 by Crackers250, on Flickr

Max Chilton, Marussia-Ferrari MR03 and Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes FW36 by Crackers250, on Flickr

For the remaining sessions we worked our way down to Copse and up towards Maggots and Becketts. At Copse I bought my Williams top, as I said above, for £65. This turned out to be £10 less than my mate paid for an identical top at a stall by the gate where we entered the circuit between Stowe and Club (Gate 15 for those that know). We had a think about this and came to the conclusion that whilst all of the official merchandise stands are all made to look the same, they must in fact be run by different operators who each request a set number of stalls and then select the merchandise they want to sell in those stalls, at which point they set the prices for it all - hence why there were discrepancies between different stands. This theory also might explain why there was a dearth of Marussia, Sauber and Williams gear, and why there was hardly any Caterham, Force India or Lotus stuff as well. Even the F1 Fan Village didn't have the full range which is very poor in my eyes. 95% of the stuff on sale was either McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull or Ferrari. In 2010 and 2011 I remember the Fan Village having every team's merchandise on sale, with the exception of HRT who clearly didn't have any! It is a big shame that the smaller teams have been virtually excluded from what is a lucrative market, despite the often astronomical costs - a Caterham cap was £30 for example and their jacket was well over £100.

Saturday was, as we all know, a bit mixed in terms of the weather - it had rained heavily from Friday evening all the way into Saturday morning, but from there it was just patchy showers across the day, and by Saturday evening, it had brightened up and wouldn't rain again until Sunday night! Unable to access the grandstands anymore, we tried out a few different vantage points - standing in front of the Abbey grandstand on the pit straight for FP3, and choosing to go between Copse and Maggots by the old pit exit for qualifying, where we were stood right next to a big screen so we could make out what was happening during the session. I've had quite a bit of success with this area when it comes to getting close to the action over the years - there was plenty of room for us to spread out and get an uninterrupted view of the track, and likewise at the MotoGP last year, there was barely anyone at all even watching from there! For the F1 race I'd imagine it was quite a bit different but it has to be one of the closest points to the actual track anywhere around the circuit which is nice. Suffice to say, those that were around us watching the action, including the marshals, were well aware of my delight that both Marussias made it into Q2! I didn't really take many pictures during Saturday or Sunday, a different tactic to last year, and I found it meant I could keep track of the action far more easily and increased my enjoyment of it all too. So I'd recommend getting the snaps in on Friday, leaving you to enjoy the rest of the weekend!



For Sunday, we replicated our successful formula from the previous year, only we changed the location that we chose to watch from. Last year we sat at the Vale chicane before Club, but this year chose to go on the pit straight itself. That meant queuing at Gate 16 rather than Gate 15, and we got there a little before midnight and with plenty of layers and a bit of alcohol inside of us, tried to sleep through the cold. The gates open at 6am and by that point the queue was ridiculously long. If you'd been towards the back you wouldn't have had a hope of getting a seat at the front of the fences. Fortunately, being one of the first through my specific gate, I pegged it across the short stretch to the track and bagged us a front row spot from which we stayed for the whole day. When you're on General Admission, on the Sunday you pick a spot and you stay there, otherwise you might as well just turn up at 10am and spend the whole day looking at the backs of other peoples' heads! We got to spread my flags out in front of us on the grass bank that ran down to the catch fencing, and were able to see both the grid and the entrance to Abbey, as well as lots of pit lane action. We also had a big TV right in front of us to keep tabs on the action as well which was handy. As you can probably imagine, the best I managed was about an hour or two of sleep whilst we queued through the night, so once we were in and settled, and the temperature started to come up, we were snoozing quite regularly when there wasn't any action. I even caught about half an hour's sleep in the red flag period after Kimi's crash, so thank you stewards for delaying the restart for an hour!





At the start of the F1 race, the sound, despite what Bernie and the journalists might have you think, was bloody impressive. Totally different to the V8s obviously, but I much prefer the new sound. Coulthard and Prost drove an RB8 round during the 50th GP parade and the screaming that made reminded me of the old sound. At a live event it starts to give you a headache after a while and Christ knows what the start would have been like with all of those kicking off. Over a two hour race it can become quite unpleasant and you end up hoping the race will end soon! So to have the deeper engine note and new sounds was a welcome reprieve as far as I was concerned, and they're no less impressive, they just have a different sound, and they're still bloody loud too! I don't know what all the fuss was about! The race itself was really great, and I'm sure the self-declared purists here will scoff at the fact that the entire pit straight erupted in a cacophony of delight when Rosberg retired and Hamilton took the lead, in the same manner as when Vettel packed in last year. The fact is though, that both Button and Chilton had just as much support as Hamilton, and when Max unlapped himself from the Caterhams we were all cheering. And what you need to remember is that it's the British GP, attended mostly by British fans, wanting a British winner. If you find that sort of patriotism offensive then I suggest any national sporting event probably isn't for you, because a reaction like the one when Rosberg retired is inevitable.

At the end of the race we grabbed our stuff and waited to be let onto the track - unfortunately the marshals were a bit dozy and didn't open the gate until the British anthem was playing so we had to leg it up half the length of the pit straight to get to the podium at the far end. No doubt you've seen the pictures so you'll have seen the track rammed with people - it was great to be within all of that. Once the podium ceremony is all over it's a great opportunity to get photos on the track - we parked our chairs down on P2 on the grid and got a group selfie in, at which point attention turned to the BBC post-race show that I mentioned earlier. And as the heat took its toll and tiredness properly kicked in we made our way back to the campsite and enjoyed our last night there. In the morning we packed up pretty sharpish and were away by about 9.30am - this has the added bonus of missing the vast majority of post-race traffic which leaves on Sunday night. Even excluding the fact you'll be knackered after the whole weekend, the last thing you want is to be snarled up trying to get away late into the night. Better to get a good sleep in and leave in the morning when the queues have gone and you're not as tired!

Anyway that's probably the longest post I've ever made on here - I hope some of you find it useful and it serves as a good advert for the race. I honestly highly recommend it to anyone thinking about doing it. Take four days off work and make it a race to remember! If you plan it and maximise your time, you won't regret it, I can promise you that!

For my full album of Flickr photos, visit this page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/crackers250/sets/72157645173311738
There's a few in this post that you won't find in there - I added them quickly to Photobucket as I felt they weren't good enough for Flickr but were worth including here!

AndreaModa wrote:

I happened to notice that The Talented One liked that flag.

He did indeed - enough to retweet it!

Recognition! <3

AndreaModa wrote:He did indeed - enough to retweet it!

Recognition! <3

That's a great report above, thanks for all of that - deserves recognition from all of us, though of course we can't quite match up to Max!

Really good report mate, very interesting and helpful.