Yesterday I went to the Silverstone classic, over 400 photos attest to the quality and size of the grids and I finally got to see group C cars run at dusk, exhausts flashing and brake discs glowing but that’s for the Nostalgia forum, my point here is different.
The Classic uses the older national paddock for the morning races and the new international "Bernie wing building” paddock for the afternoon races.
The national paddock is nowadays pretty user friendly - permanent cafe, bar, plenty of toilets and even showers. It’s a short walk through the Copse tunnel to the outside grandstands for race viewing.
In contrast the international paddock has no access to permanent toilets, no drinking water, and no proper cafe. For all afternoon in 30 degree C weather your only food and drink were four mobile burger and coffee bars, and only portable toilets to use. To get to the grandstands opposite is a nearly one mile walk back through the main circuit entrance.
My first instinct was to moan at Silverstone for such a shortage of facilities at the "Bernie" paddock versus the old, national one. Then it dawned on me - the whole Bernie paddock complex built at huge cost to Silverstone is simply not ever intended for public access. The only people who will ever use it are the F1 circus. They can get access to the F1 Paddock club for food and drink. All the teams and corporate guests will use the team’s massive mobile hospitality rigs to eat drink etc.
Suddenly I realised that the whole F1 world is now so isolated from the public that they arrive at a circuit and live in a complete bubble world devoid of any contact with the public who pay them. What is more they see it as their absolute right to have £27M spent on facility which only they will ever have access to.
Sorry for a rant but it is now so obvious to me why F1 cannot fix its popularity problems - they have become so isolated and pampered as individuals they never even see any race fans. Marie Antionette and eating cake come to mind as the most probably recommendation of the new popularity working group.
Edited by mariner, 27 July 2014 - 11:36.