British GP(Silverstone 2007):Race weekend report.

Phew! - what a busy weekend that was working the pit-straight Grandstand gate at the Silverstone British GP on the Saturday GP qualifying and the Sunday GP race day.I can still hear the 7ooHP F1 engines in my head screaming down the pit straight at 170mph 24 hours after the race has finished.

On the Friday i was on track protection point duties between the Club and Abbey chicane, this entailed making sure only authorised vehicles such as "emergency vehicles!","safety cars!", and track sweepers could use the escape road to get on-to the track during or after the the track was in use.Now this sounds glamorous but during the entire 14hour shift the only vehicle that required my services was the track sweeper, piloted by an old man who otherwise read a newspaper or slept in his cab[whilst waiting to go into action].Anyway, i shouldn't complain because i had a good view of the F1 cars[Friday practice] and GP2 cars[qualifying] and, the Porch super cup cars[race] - making their way from the club corner then breaking into farm[with traction control crackling and popping from the F1 cars] and then disappearing over the small crest before the flat-out bridge corner; and all this from the infield with two huge video screens to get the lap times and results from.However the wind was bitterly cold and this was during the day.This made me a little concerned as to the welfare of the ginger haired youth that took over the post after me for the night shift!? - with no lunch, no coat, no torch - and nothing going on, on the circuit to quell the boredom(he was either as hard as nails or brain dead!).

Lewis fans with yellow crash helmet coloured wigs set up their Hamilton banner.

Saturday came and it was a six o'clock start on the pit-straight-Grandstand entry gate.The day started as usual with a bit of confusion over what media pass or what type of ticket we could let the "media" and the general public in with.[little did we know just what was to come].

On qualifying day the gates to the grandstands have to be maned by security to ensure that anybody who does not have a grandstand ticket does not get in.These people have Bronze general admission tickets:this means no access to any grandstand [just the raised and grassy areas "between" the grandstands - standing room only].As in previous years grandstand ticket holders tickets have a "roaming" grandstand option on the Saturday qualifying.This means that:if you have one of these tickets you can watch qualifying from any grandstand and not just the one that has a allocated seat number on it for the race on the Sunday - are you with me so far?....good! - then i Shall continue:this system works, ok; but this year silverstone added another dynamic:as well as bronze tickets, this year there were "Family fan tickets" with a "Saturday" grandstand roaming option.There were also "three day fan tickets" with general admission to "non grandstand areas" - ok?.These two types of tickets look similar - which led to confusion going back to misleading information on the Silverstone website(this is what ticket holders told me).So as the security company's tried to work out which ticket lets you in where, rolling rule changes filtered back to security on the grandstand gates.This meant one minute people were going into the swelling "popular" grandstands with what we and they thought were the right ticket's and the next minute they and us were told they couldn't go in because the tickets were "non" grandstand.Also people who had the right ticket [family fan tickets] misunderstood instructions on the website thinking they could not get into the grandstand without a £35 upgrade - only to find out they could get in without one - after paying for the upgrade?!.

We ended up getting it all sorted and running smoothly by mid morning.But, half an hour before qualifying, and as more and more people poured into the very popular pit-straight (A) and (B) grandstands - all with valid tickets!:that's £350! "weekend grandstand tickets, with the Saturday roaming grandstand option", and the people with the £130 "family fan tickets" [these tickets are what they say:They are sold as a multiple person "family" package, and wont get you into the grandstand on race day - the Sunday, but they will on qualifying [the Saturday] - as the grandstand filled and as the aerobatics teams performed above us, and concurrent with that Lewis Hamilton and (co) fired up their cars in the pits every one of us started to come to terms with a very grim specter, a specter that had been at the back of our minds for some time:when the grandstand was eventually filled to bursting point as the first qualifying round began - we had to shut the gates on people with pit-straight grandstand tickets who still wanted to get in!.These people were not happy i can tell you.These were intelligent racing fans, some had brought tickets for their partners and children as Birthday treats, expecting to see their hero's qualifying in front of their very eyes.But we had to go out there and tell them they couldn't.The only option for them was to find a less popular grandstand with empty seats, then take up the fact that the web site was misleading with the Silverstone box office.And as Lewis Hamilton went to that special place, driving with the ghost of Senna pushing his car to the max! with a mesmerizing pole position - our PR skills were pushed to the max with the people who wanted to see him do it; but we managed to get the situation under control in the end.

The Austrian legend, three times world champion Niki Lauder being interviewed just metres from our gate.

Sunday couldn't have come round quick enough, and with a 5.00am start(that's gates open with people coming in! at 5.00am)and a shiny pair of shoes, it came round pretty quick.The nightmare of the Saturday ticket "cock up" was a memory that we reversed away from, checking in only people with the allocated seat pit straight grandstand tickets (5ooo in all).I managed to find somewhere to see the start of the GP(awesome!)and caught snippets of the race between stints on the gate.It was a fantastic race, a proper race with the lead changing three times.Hamilton failed to win but Kimi, Ferrari, and of course Alonso are getting up to speed and the result has set the scene for a cracking continuation of the already fascinating 2007 season.Germany next, can't wait!.

Here's what 15400HP at 17000RPM sounds like at the start of the British GP(2007) from a spectators eye view - captured on their video camcorder.