Eric Silbermann's British Grumpy Preview

Our resident grumpy old git wants free food and please can they put the paddock back where they found it? And he believes the three-pin electric plug is a thing of beauty, a joy forever and a symbol of the British Empire. Oh dear…

Chemistry was not exactly my forte at school, but I do understand that scientifically, we need some sort of atmosphere to breathe and survive. Armed with that knowledge, I therefore find it amazing that people don’t just keel over and drop dead on entering the Silverstone F1 paddock.

I’m not saying it’s as bad as China, but compared to the old paddock, between Woodcote and Copse, it’s a rather sterile and bland affair. Mind you, I remember when we abandoned the old grass motorhome area next to the original paddock, I was already complaining back then. The motorhomes all got their own lawn area delineated with white picket fencing, but by Sunday evening, especially if it had rained and especially in the days when the Jordan team seemed to manage to get half the paying fans into the area as EJ and his mates played an impromptu concert, the place began to look like a cross between the battle of the Somme and one of the Queen’s Palace Garden Parties on Acid.

The new “Wing” building sits in no-mans land and if you’re inside the wire, you only realise there’s an international event taking place when you leave in the evening.

Any suggestion I should mingle with you, the paying public, sends a shiver down my spine, but I do miss your presence on the other side of the mesh fencing

Having been institutionalised by a lifetime in the F1 paddock, it goes without saying that any suggestion I should mingle with you, the paying public, sends a shiver down my spine, but I do miss your presence on the other side of the mesh fencing. Seeing you confer with your partners before saying “no, he’s nobody” as you put your autograph books away when I walked out the paddock gate every evening was something I found reassuring. Listening to you endlessly shouting “Nige, Nige, Nige,” begging Mansell to sign your programme was all part of the big buzz that is Silverstone. Now, they seem to have put all spectators miles away from the paddock, which means you face a long walk. Take my advice and jump on the shuttle buses that run from somewhere behind the old paddock. Just don’t say I said so.

Apparently, there are quite a few of you fans who sit in the grandstand opposite the pits. We’ll have to take your word for it, as we don’t actually have any sort of view of the track in our media centre, which incidentally is the only one of the entire year that charges us for food. On the plus side, in the days before Skype or any other form of VOIP free communication, we did have free phones: my relatives in New Zealand really looked forward to the daily three hour chats we had every July.

Even when the “Wing” paddock building was brand new, it had a slightly run down seedy look to it, presumably because the F1 promoter has bled Silverstone dry and it had no money left for decent fixtures and fittings. Or maybe it’s because our hosts, the British Racing Drivers Club wanted to affect that careworn look so beloved of English Stately Home owners.

We even have the obligatory royal visit here. Tradition dictates that a member of the Royal Family (their capital letters, not mine) has to give out the pots on the podium come Sunday and when the podium and press room were all part of the same building, this involved bomb disposal dogs sweeping through the Media Centre early on race morning. Amazing how many of my colleagues were keen to know if the bomb sniffing Labrador also had a nose for Cannabis Sativa, before hurriedly heading for their lockers.

That little bit of naffness is really part of the British psyche, even the early monarchs took a perverse pleasure in being just a bit pants at everything: King Arthur burnt his cakes, King Canute (not very English I know) couldn’t stop the tide coming in and King Harold called a time-out during the battle of Hastings as he died with those immortal words on his lips, “hang on, I think I’ve got something in my eye.”

I commute daily from home for this race, which has the advantage of being cheap but it has its downsides. Years of working in F1, means I’ve grown used to being surrounded by some of the wealthiest people on the planet. I get invited to meals that I never pay for and listen to team bosses discussing the price of yachts. So, to get home after a day of this only to be told the 25 year old washing machine is on the blink and could I please deal with paying the electric bill, rather takes the gloss off things and brings you down to earth with a bump. It’s all very confusing and putting my laundry outside the bedroom in a carrier bag with my name written on it, usually gets me an old fashioned look from the wife.

The days of the legendary Silverstone traffic jams, which meant some people only just got home in time for Christmas, are now a thing of the past. However, none of the F1 folk are quite brave enough to play Russian roulette with the task of getting in in the morning: these days it generally flows fine, but it only takes one old dear in a Morris Minor to stop for a chat and it can take four hours to do four miles. This means the paddock is packed from about 6am and consequently, we’re all usually dozing off in the middle of qualifying.

Perversely, most of the problems with Silverstone are down to the fact it is a fantastic event and one of the absolute highlights on the calendar, with one of the biggest and best crowds: the organisers don’t have to paint the grandstand seats to make it look as though people are sitting in them, they don’t have to bus school kids in to boost numbers and driving into the track doesn’t involve passing endless giant posters featuring photos of our government leaders or the Royal Family.

Best of all, the non-Brits entertain us locals by complaining about pretty much everything, from the traffic, to the warm beer, to the standard of food, the price of hotels and the massive 3-pin electric plugs on which the British Empire was built. But we like it that way.

They should consider themselves lucky Silverstone fought off the threat of having the race at Donington Park, near Nottingham, for many years the gun crime capital of the UK. In the past, Nottingham had the legendary figure of Robin Hood to take care of things. Mr. Hood was well known for robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Apparently, he had tried it the other way round, but that business plan didn’t work out too well as the poor had nothing worth stealing; a lesson Bernie Ecclestone has clearly used to good effect for many a year.