Formula One ( F1 )

If you booked early enough, you could probably get to Abu Dhabi for a little more.

Admittedly it's the least exciting track (according to the drivers), but you're pretty much guaranteed decent weather and a proper weekend of entertainment.

I booked Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun tickets for around 300gn last year, but you can get single day tickets if you want for not ridiculous cash. Decent seats at the end of the straight...

You'll get weekend tickets for that. Village stand is good for viewing as you are at the end of a breaking point and near several turns.

Be prepared though - it is a proper 'British' event - expensive, way too many people, massive queues and the most horrendous traffic.

I'd also consider a European meet, but I've been to Silverstone. They also might be just as bad.

In that case surely Spa's better, no?

I did the Spanish GP a while ago.

Flew to Girona, hired a car and a bike, rode some mountains, stayed by the beach and got a train to see the GP.

It was more than £500 but not loads more and it was lots more pleasant than sitting in hours of traffic near Northampton.

Sounds good to me.

The nearest local one to here is Bahrain - local flights to there are cheaper than Sleezyjet.

Might well consider a day trip. I'll see if @jaw is up for it.

Absolutely typical of my luck that I'm getting to Oz right after the race... Think I'll make the trip next year, never been to a GP before...

PS Hamilton is OK on my book, I still remember that shy kid in his rookie season... I much prefer him to Schumi who I absolutely detested throughout his whole career... Ayrton was my #1, obvs...

spa or monza for me.

Tendency to throw toys out of pram (for example, tweeting confidential set-up information because he was a bit miffed)
Ability to say truly stupid things (for example, the Rosberg faux class war)
Enduring but misguided belief that he is a bad boy gangsta

Great driver. Bit of a plonker.

All valid points, and as you say, a bit of a plonker - only at times, though IMO, and not really any worse than any of the others at the top.

@Tenderloin - I went to Silverstone a couple of years ago. You'll get a weekend pass for that kind of money, it's best to book a grandstand seat for race day too so you've got somewhere to sit (I think they do them in different grades of seat) - these tickets then allow you in to the other stands on the other days of the weekend when it's less busy.

I think we were on Stowe or Club corner for the race but wondered around all the other ones during quali including being on the pit straight for Q3.

Be warned about the car parks though; they're typically badly organised & if (when) it rains it's near impossible to get the cars out without a mob of people pushing the less grippy ones along through the mud.

Would get my vote too.. i think Monza's slightly better for getting around the track though and to see the Historic track is also quite special.

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns30275.html

So, Rosbergs invite for Vettel to join the de-brief has the green light.
Can't imaging the team are overly happy about this pr stunt though....

I got my dad tickets from here: http://www.bookf1.com/f1-britain/tickets.htm?gclid=CNP3m_-Wr8QCFevJtAodWn4AqA

Buy ASAP as they sell out

Take your own food. I got my dad an off site parking ticket with shuttle bus option which he said worked out well.

Funny. I see Red Bull are threatening to quit now that Merc are dominating...

Sour grapes much?

Yeah, how many years did RB dominate? Four or some such? Politics pffft.

I'm a Hamilton fan, his driving is amazing.

Not just on here but generally there is an anti-Hamilton undercurrent that I can't get behind. So he wears a gold chain? WTF, it looks better on him than it would on a pasty bloke like me.

He deserves his success, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the battle between the two mercs.

If indeed there is a battle..... lets hope Nico can find a few more seconds..

Quite. Toys. Pram.

I wouldn't have gone to the papers with that pathetic quote, but I imagine it's them firing a warning shot at Renault rather than anything else. I can understand why they're annoyed - they're stuck spending millions on races they can't possibly win because they have their hands tied behind their back.

Red Bull only really dominated for a couple of years anyway, a couple of the title wins were quite close from what I remember. I felt when they were winning the engines were generally quite close but they won because of the clever (or naughty depending on your standpoint) design of the chassis & aero bits. They can have all the clever design they want now but they'll still be dragging that turd of an engine round with them.

Interesting article on the Beeb saying that McHonda are around 200 bhp behind Mercedes. That's equivalent to essentially the entire hybrid part of the engine not doing anything, and then some.

Its early days - they managed to finish a race and Mercedes took their sweet time getting where they are now, so I'd say McLaren have started well but will probably take a couple of years at least to peak. Any meaningful progress they make this season will be great to see, though.

@gridds is the man to confirm/deny this kind of information.

Tbh I'm not really sure what Honda are doing with their PU. I know that they had to 'de-tune' the engine for the sake of reliability. 200 hp is a lot. They keep on saying that when they get things sorted it will challenge the Merc but until then it's all talk.
I do know that Merc have plenty more performance they can chuck at the engine if they feel the need, which can't be good news for their competitors.

The only reason I ask is because Mercy seem to be so significantly stronger than everyone else.

What've they done that the other engine suppliers haven't?

Their homework.

Where's the fucking rep button?

Isn't the Mercedes team essentially Brawn GP?

Giedo van der Garde statement, if you haven't seen it.
https://www.facebook.com/giedovandergarde/posts/647945908643030