Driving an F1 car. One word, GRIP!!

[Olivera]

RobM77 said:

Do remember also that even in club racing, spending £50k for a season isn't unusual for the front runners, and certainly in historics up at the level of F1 cars I'd expect at least £100k a year. In a 7 race season that's your £15k per weekend. I once enquired about arrive and drive in a Caterham championship and it was £4k a weekend, and that's without travel, hotel, tyres etc. What I'm trying to say is that what the OP spent seems reasonable value for what it was. Running an F1 car is a very expensive affair requiring multiple skilled engineers, frequent engine work, refreshing suspension etc.

I've heard figures in the region of £50k per weekend to arrive-and-drive at British GT. I'd expect a season of Boss GP in an F1 car to amount to several hundred k upwards.

[Vocht]

I wish I'd never opened this thread as now my, already ridiculously expensive bucket list, just got even longer.

[RobM77]

Olivera said:

RobM77 said:

Do remember also that even in club racing, spending £50k for a season isn't unusual for the front runners, and certainly in historics up at the level of F1 cars I'd expect at least £100k a year. In a 7 race season that's your £15k per weekend. I once enquired about arrive and drive in a Caterham championship and it was £4k a weekend, and that's without travel, hotel, tyres etc. What I'm trying to say is that what the OP spent seems reasonable value for what it was. Running an F1 car is a very expensive affair requiring multiple skilled engineers, frequent engine work, refreshing suspension etc.

I've heard figures in the region of £50k per weekend to arrive-and-drive at British GT. I'd expect a season of Boss GP in an F1 car to amount to several hundred k upwards.

Both sound about right. I think renting a DFV or Judd is about £30k for a year, two or three full time engineers of sufficient skill take that well over £100k, and I suspect a set of tyres is a few grand (even my little FR ones are about £1000 a set new), of which you'd want a set for testing on the Friday and a set for each race weekend, multiplied by the number of race weekends you have plus a few tests out of season. You'd then need a decent truck to transport it and the spares of course are horrendously expensive and difficult to find. Then there's the renting of a premises to keep the car where it can be worked on by those engineers. You could quite easily get way beyond the £15k for a weekend talked about above. Considering the actual driving of the car was only a few grand, it's very reasonable indeed!

[TheOversteerLever]

Wow, that looks immense! Sure you won't be forgetting about that experience anytime soon!

For what it's worth, I thought you drove really well.

[freddytin]

Boy oh boy what an experience........ You owe your wife BIG time

Watched the vids , driving was looking half decent too .

[LittleBigPlanet]

Jealous! Awesome stuff.

[fttm]

Nice job OP , must've been a real "pinch yourself" experience . Very envious .

[languagetimothy]

Awesome. What a day out, and glad you gave it some beans.
I think if I was in your position when passing the Benetton there would have been a Murray walker voice in my head saying "... oh.. and he's got past Schumacher..."
Wonderful stuff.

[Bradley1500]

What a brilliant experience!

I have only watched some snippets from the YouTube video, but it looks as if you were doing well, certainly better than Hammond's effort on TopGear.

[MitchT]

Great stuff - loved watching the onboard. How easy were the cones to see from the relatively low driving position?

[Never you mind]

What an awesome experience. You'll never forget it.

Pay tax bill or do this? Decisions decisions

[MitchT]

Never you mind said:

Pay tax bill or do this? Decisions decisions

Take one of your customers to watch and put it down as a business expense!

[Klippie]

Fantastic...what a tick to clear off your bucket list, how about this for your next tick off - http://incredible-adventures.com/migs/

[Sterillium]

This is awesome.

[TVR Sagaris]

Great thread.

[Rawwr]

Welcome to Pistonheads!

Thread arguing about the best way to finance a car: 27 pages
Thread about someone driving an F1 car around Catalunya: 4 pages

[MrJingles705]

456mgt said:

Anyway, this is the story of an ordinary car dude plonked into an F1 car for the first time. I hope it’s useful for anyone else considering it. It’s an enormous investment in a life experience, but one that did quite literally blow me away. All up, wait for it... over 15K. Yes that's right, around £10 per second, so it’s a big deal for anyone! There's very little out there to guide you, so hopefully this will help

https://www.flickr.com/gp/129817784@N08/6y610E
https://youtu.be/S2DhOjJSjFE
https://youtu.be/oClTWhI44mE

As a thank you to my wife, I also booked her a passenger ride in a 3 seater..
https://youtu.be/bHs15S3Pl9o

Looked like it was worth every penny - nicely done OP, truely jealous

[j44esd]

Wow. Just wow. That is all.

[HariboPenguin]

That looks like such an amazing experience, 15k is a lot but well worth it I think to achieve what is pretty much every petrolheads dream.

I'm very jealous. Maybe one day I'll be able to do it too.

[RacingPete]

What an amazing experience to do...

I was interested in your lap times against the 2011 Williams in the Spanish Grand Prix (I'm sure you have done this already) - 1:48 for you vs Hamilton's 1:26 fastest lap time in race.

Though I suppose could you imagine the forces lapping the circuit 25% faster?