F1 London Demo - Wednesday 12 July

[parabolica]

Vaud said:

TheLimla said:

Fezza1 by Tim Burgess, on Flickr

I don't know why, but I love this shot. Maybe the juxtaposition of the building in Portland stone, the flag, and the statue with the contrast of the Ferrari... a taste of what a London GP could be... knocking the spots off Silverstone for visuals...

It's a great photo and was a fantastic event - there was a genuine, relaxed atmosphere and all the drivers seems really happy to be there. That said, and as much as I'd love to see a London street race on the calendar, the above isn't representative of what it would be like. Imagine Singapore/Baku etc where they have to have the 10ft high safety fence and plenty of run-off; sure in the 50s/60s that photo would have given a good impression of what it would be like, but now it would be all crash barriers and safety fences the entire loop of the track. Would still love to see it though.

[Bristol spark]

Would the logistics of a London GP even be possible realistically??

With the amount of Trucks etc the teams require,hospitality units, pits etc, then spectator stands.
Surely it would require literally shutting down the whole of london.
Plus the issue of getting spectators in.

I can't imagine the good proportion of Londoners putting up with it who probably are not interested in F1.


It kind of works in Monaco as it started that long ago and has just grown with it, along with the residents.
Plus the Train service has the capacity to train in thousands of people.
Also some of the grand stands are "floating" on the water etc
Plus a lot of the race furniture (Kerbs) are permanent fixtures.


Plus people moan Monaco and Baku etc is a poor race, well London will be the same.

I do enjoy an odd street race, I've been to Monaco and the atmosphere is fantastic, and being up and close to the cars and the noise. However i think 2 street races are enough in a season.

I think i would prefer to keep Silverstone as the British GP.

[parabolica]

Bristol spark said:

Would the logistics of a London GP even be possible realistically??

Yes. If Baku and Singapore can do it... plus they could put it somewhere other than city centre, like Docklands or Greenwich. But people would always moan about it; Londoners love a good moan. But an influx of ~100k F1 fans and all the money they bring with them would offset that. Regardless I still think it is unlikely to happen though.

[Durzel]

Out of pure curiousity one wonders why the drivers are told not to do donuts... health & safety? They're obviously always going to ignore that directive anyway so I wonder what the point is.

[Dr Z]

parabolica said:

It's a great photo and was a fantastic event - there was a genuine, relaxed atmosphere and all the drivers seems really happy to be there.

Agreed! Was great to see team members and drivers being quite accessible.

TheLimla said:

A few from today, loads more to edit but these were some of my favs.

Nice shots there.

More photos from elsewhere;

[Durzel]

Fantastic photos.

[ForZiE23]

Great photos. I watched on the live stream a proportion of this and flicked in and out across the evening. Seems a really good event and personally having felt distanced from the F1 over recent years has sparked me into following this weekend at Silverstone.

[TheLimla]

They're great pics, how did you get that level of access?

[thegreenhell]

TheLimla said:

They're great pics, how did you get that level of access?

Looking at the image watermarks, and the fact that he said they weren't his, I would say you need to be a professional photographer.

[Dr Z]

thegreenhell said:

TheLimla said:

They're great pics, how did you get that level of access?

Looking at the image watermarks, and the fact that he said they weren't his, I would say you need to be a professional photographer.

Yep, they weren't mine. I popped in before the event kicked off and couldn't work out where the teams were based so not sure if public access was possible into the area where the cars were. But I did see JB about the place where the display cars were and quite happily engaging with some fans. Unfortunately I had to leave early!

[RB Will]

Crafty_ said:

It will be interesting to see where they do the next one, I'd be surprised if they don't do one in America. Maybe Mexico too ?

Would it happen elsewhere? I guess it's easy to put on in London as pretty much all the teams are based within a couple hours drive except Ferrari?

Would be a ball ache if all the teams had to ship an old car or 2 and related kit to the US etc

[amgmcqueen]

Look's like the drivers had great fun!

I'm amazed Lewis wouldn't have wanted to drive an F1 car on the streets of London?! Maybe he's depressed?

[covboy]

thegreenhell said:

TheLimla said:

They're great pics, how did you get that level of access?

Looking at the image watermarks, and the fact that he said they weren't his, I would say you need to be a professional photographer.

LAT London Art Tech - Leading agency

Watch out for copyright issues

[Sylvaforever]

IN51GHT said:

Sylvaforever said:

LH is on holiday. Remember his interview from GP ....

I'm sure many of the drivers would have liked a break as they are little bit tired, but for LH to snub the British fans is disgusting, up until yesterday I was an LH fan, but no more.

VB for F1 WDC.

I doubt anyone really cares.



On a more positive note, the phrase

"cobbled together in the last couple of days"

obviously skipped right over your cerebellum.

[Ikemi]

It was a fantastic event, but quite difficult to see the cars if you were at the back of the crowd. My mate and I decided to run down to the Whitehall part of the track, which was less crowded than Traf. Square, and then climbed onto some window ledges to get a better view! However after the cars stopped, we decided go and find something to eat ...

Lots of people stopping and watching, with no idea as to what was going on!

[//j17]

parabolica said:

Bristol spark said:

Would the logistics of a London GP even be possible realistically??

Never mind the logistics, what about the finances? If we can't get the UK government to financially support a British GP at Silverstone why would they do it for one in London? Is the London mayor going to find between £14m and £40m down the back of the sofa (would a London GP get the 'classic race' discount?)?

[b0rk]

parabolica said:

Yes. If Baku and Singapore can do it... plus they could put it somewhere other than city centre, like Docklands or Greenwich. But people would always moan about it; Londoners love a good moan. But an influx of ~100k F1 fans and all the money they bring with them would offset that. Regardless I still think it is unlikely to happen though.

The problem with a street race is the amount of disruption caused in setting up the circuit. IIRC Singapore takes 6 weeks to prepare the course with lots of overnight closures and limited day time closures. The pits and start/finish straight are permanent infrastructure built to host the GP with a London event either land would have to found for this where they could remain year round or Baku style temporary pits/paddock would be needed. The difficulty is where within central London do you find such an expanse of unused land? The royal parks are probably not suitable as removing pavements, fences and trees really wouldn't go down well publically.

Outside of central London and it becomes even less obvious where to go, the Olympic park roads are not particularly wide with extensive islands, furniture and landscaped boulevards narrowing the roads down, to run an F1 race all these would need stripping out. Valencia achieved this by re-arranging the permanent roads to suit F1 and using removable kerbs, islands even roundabouts still the circuit lacked atmosphere and ran through waste land. Greenwich and the dome/o2 area is basically a building site combined with wasteland see Valencia for how that turned out previously.

Docklands? well the southern mudchute/milwall end is residential the northern canary wharf end is strange in that roads are all privately owned by canary wharf plc rather than adopted by the councils so to run inbetween the towers a deal would need to be agreed with Canary Wharf not the Mayor of London.

The media and public draw for a London race would be to site it in Westminster, Belgravia, Mayfair, St George's Fields and Bayswater basically in around Hyde park, Green park and St James's park. Beyond this and there is the question of how to grandstand (and ticket) an outdoor city event without shutting down large parts of central London for days or somehow managing the crowds if the event was run unticketted.

[TheAngryDog]

Sylvaforever said:

IN51GHT said:

Sylvaforever said:

LH is on holiday. Remember his interview from GP ....

I'm sure many of the drivers would have liked a break as they are little bit tired, but for LH to snub the British fans is disgusting, up until yesterday I was an LH fan, but no more.

VB for F1 WDC.

I doubt anyone really cares.



On a more positive note, the phrase

"cobbled together in the last couple of days"

obviously skipped right over your cerebellum.

But, the other 19 drivers turned up. Whether you're an LH fan or not has no bearing on that fact, which is the over-riding one of the day. People who aren't into F1, or just view it from the edge will just see this as "that British guy who didn't turn up to an event in his own country, but everyone else did". At its best it was piss poor planning to take a break during the week of a Grand Prix, regardless of whether his motives were pure, especially given the 4 week break coming up after the next race weekend. At worst it was a snub, be it politically motivated or otherwise. Whichever way you look at it, to the casual fan / watcher, it wasn't the best move in the world.

Edited by TheAngryDog on Thursday 13th July 15:55

[pc.iow]

TheAngryDog said:

Sylvaforever said:

IN51GHT said:

Sylvaforever said:

LH is on holiday. Remember his interview from GP ....

I'm sure many of the drivers would have liked a break as they are little bit tired, but for LH to snub the British fans is disgusting, up until yesterday I was an LH fan, but no more.

VB for F1 WDC.

I doubt anyone really cares.



On a more positive note, the phrase

"cobbled together in the last couple of days"

obviously skipped right over your cerebellum.

But, the other 19 drivers turned up. Whether you're an LH fan or not has no bearing on that fact, which is the over-riding one of the day. People who aren't into F1, or just view it from the edge will just see this as "that British guy who didn't turn up to an event in his own country, but everyone else did". At its best it was piss poor planning to take a break during the week of a Grand Prix, regardless of whether his motives were pure, especially given the 4 week break coming up after the next race weekend. At worst it was a snub, be it politically motivated or otherwise. Whichever way you look at it, to the casual fan / watcher, it wasn't the best move in the world.

Edited by TheAngryDog on Thursday 13th July 15:55

I'm a big LH fan but think he's done himself no favours not turning up yesterday.

[Dodgey_Rog]

Agree with most of the comments about LH not turning up, he always bangs on about how important the fans are, especially at Silverstone, and yet when given the prime opportunity for your fan base to engage you and give you that lift just before your 'home' grand prix, you skip it. Probably not the best PR decision given where he is in the championship, I thought it all a bit odd.

I always cheer LH on when I watch, because he's British, Palmer can go f**k himself, he's a whinger and a paid seat, really miss Button this year as he was and still is a character, but for the last couple of decades I've rooted for Mclaren, so the Dolmio Boy Alonso gets my support, just hope those guys can make a silk purse out of that sows ear of a Honda engine, I mean, the chassis seems to be up there if Alonso can carry it to 7th in qualifying for the Spanish GP, an impressive feat indeed.

Looking forward to the race this weekend.