Promise me that if you ever get a chance to go to a Grand Prix weekend you’ll snap it up and go because I promise you, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have.
I’ve been to the British Grand Prix twice, this year will be my third, and every year myself and my friends have an incredible time – well we must have fun to continuously shed out that amount of money. We get the General Admission ticket for the whole weekend, arrive on the Wednesday afternoon/ Thursday morning and stay until the Monday morning, this means we can see every bit of action that takes place.
Being at a Grand Prix as oppose to watching it on TV is a completely different experience, there’s always something happening even if there aren’t any cars out on track. Silverstone are great at making sure every moment you’re there is spent having fun. They have the F1 village where the main stage is as well as the Game Zone where you can go head to head with other fans on the F1 game. If you’re not at the track and are at the Woodlands Campsite there’s still stuff to do with the Lively camping area having stuff on until late at night.
Going to a Grand Prix isn’t just an opportunity to see your favourite drivers battle it out on track, it’s an opportunity to meet other people who think exactly the same way you do, who enjoy F1 jus as much as you. I’ll never forget sitting at Luffield in 2014 on race day decked out in McLaren gear amongst a sea of other McLaren fans and then there being one solitary Red Bull fan. Sebastian Vettel went for the overtake on Kevin Magnussen right in front of us and as a unison of groans came out of every single McLaren fan we heard this one Red Bull fan screaming at the top of her lungs. It’s that sort of experience that makes being at a Grand Prix weekend so special, two years on and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Perhaps the highlight of last year was the track invasion at the end of the race, I’ll never forget running down to club corner and seeing Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Vettel standing on that podium, we were there for what seemed like hours taking it all in. We walked up and down the straight clambering on to the pit wall and trying to catch hats that Manor Marussia were throwing over. We saw Sky Sports F1 doing their closing segment. My mate tried to convince a policeman to let him where his hat (it didn’t work). The best part was finding the entrance to the pits and frantically taking as many selfies as possible as the teams packed up. We were able to look over the paddock and see the monstrous constructions each team take to the Grand Prix. I still have a minuscule piece of the track from the back of the grid and a tyre marble. It’s those experience you miss when you settle for a TV screen.
So, go to a Grand Prix, you won’t regret it, it may even be the best weekend of your life.