Up at 5:am. Out at 7:10. Very wet journey, Vicky at the wheel, arrived in the same car park and at the same time as last year at 9:15am. Aggregate 'roads' are OK, but the grass is very soft and already waterlogged. Vicky does well to wheelspin the Lancer up the gentle incline on the left to the spot indicated by marshals. Hmmm, this could get interesting come home-time.
10:20-ish and that young German-fella splashes up the International Pits Straight in the Red Bull which appears to have some sort of different shade of blue paintwork for some reason or another. No doubt TV will be telling you all about it whilst we sit here.
10:45-ish. Team Marussia practice their pit stop routines.
11:00-ish. We've had enough of sitting opposite the pits and, before the hordes come out of the stands at the end of the first F1 session and after a well-earned cup of tea and a shared pie and peas in that red bus behind Vicky, we trudge up to Luffield for the GP2's. Hmm, wonder what state the car park is in now?
Midday-ish and the GP2's splash around Luffield through the standing water.
1:00pm-ish. David's highlight of the day: watching the Historic F1's at Woodcote. Just like back in the day, he mumbles.
1:05-ish. Appallingly, not everybody sat in the stand is a fan of Historic F1. Well, we have had an early start.
14:30-ish. A few F1 cars have splashed past at the start of their second session but now all is quiet on the track 'cos it is really tipping it down. Lewis is shown on the TV screens relaxing in his garage and updating his Facebook page. We decide to head back to Luffield (it's warmer on the banking than in the stands) via a stop for a hot drink. But who's going to venture across that to get a cuppa? Not us!
3:00pm-ish. After finding a stall that isn't mud-logged selling tea we feel slightly revived. Things are stirring again on track now. Quite a few cars are flying past us at Luffield. We watch for about 15 minutes. We would like to stay longer but are tired and weather-beaten (or beaten by the weather, you decide). It's time to go back to the car park (gulp).
3:30-ish. The traffic beneath the bridge from the circuit to the car park is at a standstill. This is a strange one 'cos they are all heading to, not from, the circuit. Shouldn't all these people have arrived and got in hours ago? And why is there no traffic in the lanes on the other side of the dual carriageway for folk leaving?
5:30-ish. We're finally heading out of the car park. What a fandango. Vicky had to get out and push at one point. There was one queue across the car park and one queue only. Everyone leaving joined it. Nothing moved for ages. No sign of any marshals/stewards. Only vehicles moving were the 4WD's. Gangs of 'em roaming about looking for a way out but not finding one. Eventually, people got out of their cars and began talking to each other. It transpired that the one and only queue also had vehicles in it which were still trying to get in! Some folk said they had got through the car park gates 4 hours ago but had only 'travelled' a few yards in all that time. They had been told to drive into the car park as it lead to the camp site (it doesn't). So we (and everyone else trying to leave) realised that we were going in the wrong direction and we should be trying to get out by the same way we had come in. Have you tried doing a 360 degree turn on waterlogged grass in a cowin' Lancer auto?
19:45pm-ish. We have made it safely home. Loads of police and stewards in fluorescent jackets along the road outside the car park. Much standing still and gawping but little in the way of decisive action. Cheers for that. Of course, the sun shone as soon as we had battled our way onto the A43. However, it was stop-start all the way home. Accidents, flooding and general mayhem the order of the day on all the Midlands motorways. That car will need a trip the car wash tomorrow.
N.B. Having now watched the news, and caught up with all that has been happening around the country yesterday (we are writing this blog the day after), we think, with the benefit of hindsight, that we got off lightly. We bet there are still some folk who haven't got out of that car park yet! Or into it, come to think of it.
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