In July 1997 my cousin Jonas, both my brothers and I went over to Great Britain to watch some good old formula one racing at Silverstone. We left our interesting Hotel Carlisle in Paddington, London for a two-hour trip to South Hamptonshire and from there we caught a bus to the track. We had to walk the last half-mile or so to reach the entrance. Getting closer and closer to our goal of the journey, more or less everyone in the crowd stopped marching turning into jogging instead, kept up to pace by the powerful sound of F1 cars warming up. Once inside the gates I was glad I had brought my earplugs with me…
One thing I lacked though was a ladder or a skylift of some sort to be able to photograph without getting everyone’s heads and waiving arms in the viewfinder all of the time! If we’d paid those extra £100 for seats in the visitors stand of course none of this would have been a problem.
Everyone where we stood cheered loudly every time Schumacher and, naturally, Damon Hill showed up. A driver that really impressed me a great deal was Wurst who acted as stand-in for Gerard Berger suffering from illness. The overview of the race was poor, at least I found it rather difficult to get a grip on what drivers were attempting what moves and where.
Face the facts; you’re much better of watching a race from the livingroom sofa than you are watching it live, you can always burn up a piece of rubber in the sink just to get into the right mood!