Grand Prix Rejects

Any have plans to go to other races this year? Formula Ford Festival at Brands in October?
Field trip to the Donington Museum?

I would have done the Donington museum myself when I was at the Formula E tests, but ran right out of time when the buses ran late...

No plans to date, but probably won't venture any further than Brands for the rest of this season. (Or perhaps Beaulieu).

Beaulieu still in early december? That could be interesting.

Faustus wrote:Beaulieu still in early december? That could be interesting.

As an aside. I'm already going with my dad to that. Should be a good evening.

I am definitely going to the Silverstone Classic next year. My father is coming over and we're going together, on the Saturday and sunday. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. Brilliant race meeting, great atmosphere, great racing and amazing cars. Sort of like the Goodwood Festival of Speed but without the marketing crap and with better cars.
My father has never had the pleasure of witnessing a Can-Am race and the organisers are planning a big reunion race, so for that alone it will be worth it. Plus the late evening Group C race, the FIA Masters F1 race, the Formula 5000 race and the pre-65 GT race filled with Ferrari 250 GTOs. Can't wait.
I need to get a decent camera by then, because I have some paddock passes lined up and there will be bucketloads of amazing cars to photograph.

Faustus wrote:I am definitely going to the Silverstone Classic next year. My father is coming over and we're going together, on the Saturday and sunday. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. Brilliant race meeting, great atmosphere, great racing and amazing cars. Sort of like the Goodwood Festival of Speed but without the marketing crap and with better cars.
My father has never had the pleasure of witnessing a Can-Am race and the organisers are planning a big reunion race, so for that alone it will be worth it. Plus the late evening Group C race, the FIA Masters F1 race, the Formula 5000 race and the pre-65 GT race filled with Ferrari 250 GTOs. Can't wait.
I need to get a decent camera by then, because I have some paddock passes lined up and there will be bucketloads of amazing cars to photograph.

Sounds good. When during the year is it?

29th to 31st of July.

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/

Tickets aren't on sale yet but I've already booked the hotel in Milton Keynes. I'm doing the hospitality thing as well, no expense spared. Next year is my father's 65th birthday so this will be my present to him.
We can talk more about it closer to the time and see if you're interested.
The weekend before will be the Spa 24 Hours which I am going to be working at, so this will be perfect after a week of working my arse off.

Tickets for the Silverstone Classic are on sale now!

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/ticke ... a-16535317

2-day tickets (friday and Saturday) for £75, that's the one for me.

Faustus wrote:Tickets for the Silverstone Classic are on sale now!

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/ticke ... a-16535317

2-day tickets (friday and Saturday) for £75, that's the one for me.

Always fancied this, but do the cars change on each day, or can you go on the Friday for example and see all of the cars, even if they're competing on Sunday (in the paddock I mean).

AndreaModa wrote:

Faustus wrote:Tickets for the Silverstone Classic are on sale now!

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/ticke ... a-16535317

2-day tickets (friday and Saturday) for £75, that's the one for me.

Always fancied this, but do the cars change on each day, or can you go on the Friday for example and see all of the cars, even if they're competing on Sunday (in the paddock I mean).

No change to the cars. Inevitably some cars might be running on friday and then not running later on and vice-versa, but it's the same cars.
Paddock access is free and there are 2. Historic F1, Group C, Can-Am, all the fun of the fair. I reckon Friday to look around the paddocks and Saturday for the races. The Group C is always the last race on Saturday and ends in dusk. The Can-Am celebration should be awesome.

Faustus wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:

Faustus wrote:Tickets for the Silverstone Classic are on sale now!

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/ticke ... a-16535317

2-day tickets (friday and Saturday) for £75, that's the one for me.

Always fancied this, but do the cars change on each day, or can you go on the Friday for example and see all of the cars, even if they're competing on Sunday (in the paddock I mean).

No change to the cars. Inevitably some cars might be running on friday and then not running later on and vice-versa, but it's the same cars.
Paddock access is free and there are 2. Historic F1, Group C, Can-Am, all the fun of the fair. I reckon Friday to look around the paddocks and Saturday for the races. The Group C is always the last race on Saturday and ends in dusk. The Can-Am celebration should be awesome.

Great, cheers for that Faustus. I'll definitely consider this for 2016!

There will apparently be an in-season test at Silverstone this year, on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th July. Don't know if Silverstone will charge for this, but is anyone provisionally up for this?

Could well be interesting. It's better than having to disappear off to Abu Dhabi for it!

dinizintheoven wrote:Could well be interesting. It's better than having to disappear off to Abu Dhabi for it!

Definitely easier, although the weather is not guaranteed to be better...

possibly, possibly

Good news, everybody! Silverstone confirms that the post-British GP test will be open to the public and that tickets will be available in the coming weeks!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122817

If I get that job in Germany I might hit Hockenheim or Spa

Big news (for me at least ): I've managed to get an Erasmus exchange placement for my next year of university in Uppsala, Sweden. First of all, are there any Swedes on the forum I can contact about maybe going to motorsport events in the country? Also, has anyone here been to the Rally of Sweden before? I think it's practically compulsory for me to go to it if I can, and getting some kind of field trip organised would be good fun

That moment when you discuss off-handedly with a friend about getting tickets to the British Grand Prix this year, and the general admission ticket is £195 at the cheapest. I mean, oh my god. That's ridiculous. I don't ever remember it costing that much. That's ridiculous. Oh my god. Seriously? £195?

Rob Dylan wrote:That moment when you discuss off-handedly with a friend about getting tickets to the British Grand Prix this year, and the general admission ticket is £195 at the cheapest. I mean, oh my god. That's ridiculous. I don't ever remember it costing that much. That's ridiculous. Oh my god. Seriously? £195?

The WEC weekend general admission ticket was £40 and that included paddock access and grandstand access in the ones which were open. It was a great weekend this year although I only done the Sunday this year with my dad.

Rob Dylan wrote:That moment when you discuss off-handedly with a friend about getting tickets to the British Grand Prix this year, and the general admission ticket is £195 at the cheapest. I mean, oh my god. That's ridiculous. I don't ever remember it costing that much. That's ridiculous. Oh my god. Seriously? £195?

GA ticket plus campsite pass. £250-ish for a five night camping holiday with a load of F1 thrown in. Starts to look a bit different then in my view!

With the recent unfortunate news of the closing of the Donington Collection on the 5th of November I think this is the time to visit. I've been twice before but I don't want to miss the opportunity of going one more time. I'm thinking of friday the 2nd of November or possibly the 26th of October.
(edit - 26th of October is better for me)
I'll be driving from Kent so I can pick up someone along the way, if necessary.
Any takers?

Faustus wrote:With the recent unfortunate news of the closing of the Donington Collection on the 5th of November I think this is the time to visit. I've been twice before but I don't want to miss the opportunity of going one more time. I'm thinking of friday the 2nd of November or possibly the 26th of October.
I'll be driving from Kent so I can pick up someone along the way, if necessary.
Any takers?

Sadly cannot do either date due to university lectures, but could do the Saturdays, 27th or 3rd.

Eish! I've never been to the Donington Collection and with it (still) practically on my doorstep, I should. Keep us posted, I'll turn up whenever needed.

dinizintheoven wrote:Eish! I've never been to the Donington Collection and with it (still) practically on my doorstep, I should. Keep us posted, I'll turn up whenever needed.

Hey Jim!
26th of October. I’m aiming to leave home in Kent nice and early and be at the museum for opening time and stay as long as possible. I can pick up anyone who needs a lift who is reasonably along the way.

Marvellous. And if anyone wants to stay for the finest burgers IN THE WORLD afterwards, I know where to go... provided we don't leave it too late.

Sounds like a plan!
I can’t leave too late because I have a 3-hour drive to get back home.

I've somehow only just seen this - if I'd known it was closing earlier I would have gone, even though I've been twice before. Why has it closed, just not making enough cash? And what happens to the Lec and the pink Branham now, eh?

Barbazza wrote:I've somehow only just seen this - if I'd known it was closing earlier I would have gone, even though I've been twice before. Why has it closed, just not making enough cash? And what happens to the Lec and the pink Branham now, eh?

Kevin Wheatcroft had said he was able to persuade MSV to keep the museum open until now (having originally been scheduled for closure in 2017, it seems), but that the museum 'did not fit into the business plans of MSV'.

The indication is that the museum had been losing money for some time though - Jonathan Palmer has indicated that visitor numbers had been in decline and that MSV didn't think it was a worthwhile investment, and from what a few visitors have said, it sounds as if some of the exhibits that were on loan from private collectors had been returned to their original owners in the past few years to cut costs.

As for what will happen next, those cars which don't belong to the Wheatcroft family seem to have been returned to their original owners, whilst they themselves are currently mulling over what to do with the remains of their collection. There has been a little bit of idle speculation that, to spread costs, they might loan their cars to another major motor museum - perhaps at Silverstone or at Beaulieu - though it seems a bit too early to say exactly what will happen just yet.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news ... ay-2111167

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the museum. I could really only do it on 1 day but my car failed its MOT the day before. That was fun. I spent the day that I would have gone to the museum with dinizintheoven dicking around with an airbag sensor.
dinizintheoven went and said it was alright, despite most of the McLarens and Williams having already gone.

No McLarens, one Williams (a 1903 FW08C as tested by some bloke called Senna to see if he would be any good at this F1 lark), but a near-complete collection of Force Indias did go some way to making up for that - and there was reject gold in its Spyker predecessor, along with still a fair few F1, F3 and F5000 cars from the 1970s and 1980s. And some Vanwalls, and some German WWII-era military equipment that could never have gone on display in its home country.

Certainly not a waste of a morning. I never found out what the race was that was happening at the same time, though.

Oof, that sounds like it would have been worth the trip for the Spyker alone! F1 absolutely needs more obscuro reject teams again. They should just open the floodgates and let the next three teams who sign up in Oh, and one of them should sign Winkelhock

dinizintheoven wrote:one Williams (a 1903 FW08C),

Wow, I would love to have seen that. Wonder how well it did in that year's Grand Prix against HWNSNBM's compatriot, Ferenc Szisz?

dr-baker wrote:

dinizintheoven wrote:one Williams (a 1903 FW08C),

Wow, I would love to have seen that. Wonder how well it did in that year's Grand Prix against HWNSNBM's compatriot, Ferenc Szisz?

The race was won by Dr. Emmett Brown. Put it that way.

dinizintheoven wrote:

dr-baker wrote:

dinizintheoven wrote:one Williams (a 1903 FW08C),

Wow, I would love to have seen that. Wonder how well it did in that year's Grand Prix against HWNSNBM's compatriot, Ferenc Szisz?

The race was won by Dr. Emmett Brown. Put it that way.

I should have known it was won by The Doctor. Doctor Who? I don't mean Valentino Rossi...

dinizintheoven wrote:No McLarens, one Williams (a 1903 FW08C as tested by some bloke called Senna to see if he would be any good at this F1 lark), but a near-complete collection of Force Indias did go some way to making up for that - and there was reject gold in its Spyker predecessor, along with still a fair few F1, F3 and F5000 cars from the 1970s and 1980s. And some Vanwalls, and some German WWII-era military equipment that could never have gone on display in its home country.

Certainly not a waste of a morning. I never found out what the race was that was happening at the same time, though.

That does seem to tie in with what some have been saying, which is that the collection at the museum was already partially depleted and that a number of cars had been returned (I presume that McLaren have taken back their cars, and Williams probably have done the same too), with the Wheatcroft family putting some of the WWII vehicles that they owned into the museum to help pad out the collection a bit. Good to hear that you did enjoy it, even if perhaps it wasn't quite at its full glory.

And the one thing I didn't mention was that it was half price to get in, because of the loss of the "main" attractions of the collection. It actually cost me more to get there on the bus...

dinizintheoven wrote:one Williams (a 1903 FW08C as tested by some bloke called Senna to see if he would be any good at this F1 lark)

Never heard of him.

Faustus wrote:

dinizintheoven wrote:one Williams (a 1903 FW08C as tested by some bloke called Senna to see if he would be any good at this F1 lark)

Never heard of him.

First name Bruno. Teammate to Pastor Maldonado, Williams's last race winner...