It was a very cold and dreary Friday morning when I walked to Ipswich Train Station for what was the start of a long journey for my first taste of a World Endurance Championship event in the flesh. Having navigated London I arrived at Northampton where I was introduced to the people I would be spending the next three days with, a few people I had been speaking to for years but I had yet to see in person. My 6 Hours of Silverstone experience had begun, and what an experience it was.
After a swift trip to Asda for a lot of biscuits, we arrived at Silverstone and to the Woodlands campsite where we swiftly got to work with getting our tents up. It was the first time in almost six years since my last visit to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix that year, won by some German kid in his Red Bull. We were finished by the middle part of the WEC Free Practice 1, and from there on it was just pretty surreal. Some of the cars looked and sounded absolutely fantastic in person. I was surprised that it was tricky to hear the top LMP1 cars applying their hybrid systems with exception of the Audi, and I was also surprised at how amazing the GTE cars both looked and sounded, with a notable shout-out to the #50 Larbre Competition Corvette in this area, and it swiftly became one for me to look out for in the race. On the other end of the spectrum, the #4 ByKolles looked and sounded dreadful through the corners all weekend, only emphasised by its position in the standings in virtually every session. In the ELMS sessions, the BMWs sounded absolutely superb, and there was even a Porsche with my own racing number on it. The brand new LMP3 cars (one of which was driven by Sir Chris Hoy) looked stunning yet compact.
From there, we began to walk the circuit, and we took to the old Bridge and Priory corners and headed towards Luffield as the Formula Three cars took to the track for their first qualifying. It was nice to see some very talented youngsters take to the track and taking different lines through the tricky corner. During the Free Practice 2 for the European Le Mans Series and the WEC respectively, we walked along the entirety of the circuit pretty much, and explored the Fan Area too on the Stowe Circuit. There were some very nice-looking areas there, including a tequila tent and a few simulators. It would have been nice to have had a bit more time to explore this area further but it did seem to be really popular with the fans. At this point, we had discovered that there were shuttle buses running and that concluded our exercise for the weekend. We finished our first day of watching cars by watching F3 cars tackle the tricky Vale and Club complex of corners in the second part of qualifying.
My first night of camping ever was not the easiest. After a barbeque which worked out insanely cheap compared to buying food from the stands which were there, the wind really picked up and this did make it very difficult to sleep. I did resort to having to use a set of earplugs which I won from Red Bull Racing a few years back, which did help significantly. Saturday came eventually and my timing was somewhat immaculate. After grabbing the first of what was about six very expensive coffees that morning, I headed to the pit straight grandstand for the WEC FP3. A deluge occurred at this point and the track was soaked. Despite this, the cars did plenty of running, and it was absolutely awesome to watch these cars tackle the Club and Abbey corners in wet conditions which were very tricky. By the time of the first F3 race, the rain had stopped, it was bright and sunny and I met a Twitterer at Club itself. Watching the race from here was a good move as that was where all of the drama kicked off. On a damp track, a rolling start failed as a number of cars were eliminated before they had even started, and there was more drama following another safety car. From there, we headed to the paddock where we saw the likes of Sir Jackie Stewart and Karun Chandhok, which was really surreal for somebody who had not seen former Formula 1 drivers in the flesh before, especially a three-time World Champion.
Maggotts and Becketts was my next port of call, for qualifying. I met up with yet another group of people who I had organised to meet and it was very cold and very windy. Despite this, watching the cars flying through the incredibly quick section of corners was fantastic, and it was there where the Audis looked in a class of their own. The Toyotas struggled a bit with what looked like understeer whilst the Porsches were in-between. Some of the LMP2 cars looked stunning through this sequence with their fantastic liveries and healthy amounts of downforce. From the insane cold to the insane heat, it emerged to us that the Wing café was open, so we walked there via the inside of the circuit, and being able to sit in a Nissan GT-R LM NISMO, which was very neat. I was surprised at the simplicity of the interior, but the complexity of the exterior. It was very nice to meet even more people there, and to watch another crazy F3 race, with some great atmosphere from others who were there too. From there, more people met me there for the ELMS race, where watching both the start and the finish was incredible. The last hour or so was the standout highlight for me of the weekend, with a three-way battle for the lead which involved Touring Car-style contact in addition to having slower cars to lap. It was one of the finest motor races I had ever watched let alone seen it happen in person. I thought nothing could top that.
After another night with minimal sleep, we hopped on a bus and headed to the Wing again, this time for the start of the final F3 race. Unfortunately, I was unable to see the end to this due to queuing up for the WEC pit walk. Seeing so many drivers in the flesh that I had only previously seen on the TV was absolutely crazy. I even managed to grab a selfie with G-Drive’s Sam Bird, who went onto win his class in the race itself.
We returned to the café for the start of the six hour endurance race, and the stands and grass verges were very much busy. I was pleasantly surprised at how many attended the race. During the race itself, we walked up through the first sector of the circuit, and it was superb to watch the racing happen from there. During the full course yellows, we moved around a bit, and eventually ended up alternating between Club and the café. The last few hours of the race were phenomenal with battles for the lead in the top prototype and GT classes. After looking sluggish on the straights all weekend, Audi somehow managed to steal the victory form Porsche, with reigning champions Toyota looking like they have some work to do. There were great battles up and down the field, and we still did not know who would win until towards the end. It was truly a great day of racing.
That concluded the main part of my experience. After running through London en route home, I was relieved to return really. Whilst all of the above was fantastic, there were a few snags however: disappointingly the Rebellion Racing, Nissan Motorsports and Team SARD-Morand teams did not attend, although Nissan did make at least some effort with fan interaction over the weekend, as seen below with not one, but two of their GT-R LM NISMOs on show for fans to sit in.
Being able to tell who is in the respective cars is very difficult unless you either have Radio Le Mans on or if you are keeping a close eye on Twitter, which did make things a bit tricky. But at the end of the day, I got almost infinitely better value for my £40 ticket than I would have done for a £175 Formula 1 race ticket at the same circuit, given the quality of the cars, the drivers and the racing. That absolutely cannot be disputed. I recommend that you do attend this race, but it is a far better experience if you do so with friends as it was great to discuss the racing happening in front of us as it occurred. It is probably a very good experience if you are on your own as well, but I would not recommend it as much if you are completely new to motorsport or not a fan of endurance racing as such. I’m almost certainly going again next year, but this time, I’ll be taking suncream.
