Tickets and accommodation sorted for the MotoGP this month. Splashed out on hospitality for Saturday. Sunday we’re slumbing it (tickets were a present).
First trip to Silverstone for an event and first time at a MotoGP race. Looking forward to it. Anyone else going this year?
Did you get sorted for Assen ..?
Two Gp’s in one year..?
And I should be going weather dependant..!
No, couldn’t do Assen in the end this year. Maybe 2026.
Ok. Shame .
Typical of Siverstone’s history with MotoGP…..we have had the best spring on record and just as MotoGP comes to town, it looks like the weather is changing.
I’ve not bought my tickets yet and unless it changes won’t be going.
General admission is £100 …!
For me there is nothing to tempt me back to Silverstone (well free tickets maybe), it was bleak in August with little atmosphere so I have no desire to go there in May 
It’s still too far out for an accurate forecast so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. We’re indoors on Saturday but Sunday there’ll be no cover except for umbrellas.
Sods law. Bank Holiday weekend and school holiday, why should we be surprised 
Pack your waterproofs , they always ward off the rain gods 
We’re hobnobbing in hospitality today. Jumped in a cab to get here so we can take advantage of the free bar. Someone was a bit pessimistic about the time it would take to get to the circuit from our digs so we arrived half-an-hour before the gates open even though we left half-an-hour late. Still, it was quiet for a little wander about.
So, without giving away the results as I haven’t watched it yet, was it a good Sunday? I was riding around not far from Silverstone in the afternoon and it was pretty blustery and I started wondering how it was over there. I know from previous visits how exposed Silverstone can be.
The great thing about being in hospitality is all the free food and drink. The downside of being in hospitality is…the free food and drink. This will become apparently later. They Australians on our table certainly knew how to have a good time and where the wine was kept. We have new friends.
A word on hospitality and the general experience of being at Silverstone. We talked to all sorts of staff, serving people, booking people, merchandise people, tour guides, security, the people wandering about keeping the place tidy and litter free - without exception, they were absolutely brilliant. Everyone had a smile, time to help and generally made us feel very welcome at a circuit we’d not been to before. Very impressed with that.
Obviously you can’t get on to the track itself but there was a simulator to play with. It’s not a video game; you’re watching a video of a quick lap by a bone fide racer with a ‘dial’ on the screen showing their acceleration, braking and lean angles, like you’d see with the on-bike tv coverage sometimes.. The idea is to match their lap. A graph shown afterwards overlays your ‘telemetry’ on to theirs. I was rubbish because I could’t get my head around the speed of the bike not being controlled by the throttle. 38th out of 50 Rachel did better, coming 18th.
First place? A skinny little kid called Noah who must’ve been no more than 8 years old. He absolutely nailed it! He did need a bit of help with the leaning, what with weighing about the same as a house cat, but mightly impressive nonetheless.
A paddock tour was available, you just had to book at the desk set up in hospitality. Our time slot coincided with the teams having lunch so we didn’t see any familiar faces but it was still an interesting mooch. Our new friends from Oz sponsor Joel Kelso in Moto3 so got to say hello in the garage but we stuck to the main drag.
The view from the hospitality terrace isn’t the best for the racing but you do get a good view of the start and can see all the riders coming and going in the pits. Were spent most of the time above the Yamaha garage.
I learned a few things on the Saturday:
Sprint race over, we watched the celebrations from behind the podium and saw Fabio Di Giannantonio chase his team halfway down the straight with the Prosecco. You didn’t see that on TV.
After the track action is finished for the day, the evening entertainment begins, starting with a charity auction. Pedro Acosta, Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini (all KTM riders) were on stage signing and flogging bits of merch. A Michelin cap, signed by Enea, had reached about £170 when some drunk woman in the crowd shouted, “Five hundred pounds!”. Enea’s face was a picture. So was mine when I found out who the mad woman was. Did I mention the drinks had been free all day? 
The only reason she didn’t bid on Pedro’s £2000 boots was because, Felicity from Oz held her arms down.
Next up after all that excitement, a covers band called Rockology. About as good as the name suggests. They were like Spice Girls gone bad.
Saturday night’s headline entertainment was…
…who I didn’t know much about but were actually pretty good.
Sunday rolled around. It was peeing down when we had breakfast at the hotel but by the time we set off for the circuit it was windy but the rain had stopped, and stayed stopped until we were almost home that evening. It was pretty windy, though. Some people (cough) were feeling a bit worse for wear on the 30 minute ride from the hotel to the circuit.
We bumped in to a couple of friends on the walk in from the bike park, and our Aussie chums appeared again before heading of to the paddock for lunch. No hospitality or even grandstand tickets for us so we watched the main race with the hoi polloi at Farm Curve , which is actually a pretty good spot.
I won’t give anything away in case you’re reading this and still plan to watch the race. Suffice to say it was surprising, eventfu and exciting, and will probably be looked back on as one of the most memorable races of the season.
Tired and thirsty, we finished up by looking around the Silverstone museum. Free admission with any ticket and worth a look if you’re at all in to motorsport.
We’re now working our way through the TV coverage filling in the gaps where we couldn’t see parts of the races, and attempting to spot Rachel jumping up and down with excitement whenever Fabio Quartararo rode in to his garage.
Next year, Phillip Island, apparently. Did I mention there was a lot of wine…?
Great write up Saul 
A good time had by all!
Did your new Aussie friends invite you to Phillip Island or was it purely a wine induced decision?
