Silverstone week is our busiest of the year. Planning starts early and every last minute is used to make sure we are totally prepared for the British Grand Prix.
Even an appointment at the hairdressers is a couple of hours I can use to read up on the week ahead!
My first day on air is Wednesday and we are broadcasting with all seven Formula 1 teams that call the British GP their home race. After my 5.30am alarm goes off I head to the Williams headquarters in Grove, Oxfordshire to do a live into Sky Sports News HQ with chief operations engineer Jakob Andreasen and Jason Somerville, the team’s head of aerodynamics.
We set up outside as it’s a nice day and I interview them live on SSNHQ. Once that is done we head to Lotus at Enstone, some 27 miles away, while Craig Slater is heading to McLaren in Woking for his first live update. He speaks to Jonathan Neale about McLaren’s season while we are grabbing a quick coffee just down the road from Lotus HQ. Thank you to the security guard on the gate about the cafe tip-off!
At Lotus they let us carry out our interview with CEO Matthew Carter in the race bays, although we have to frame the shot very carefully to make sure we don’t reveal anything we shouldn’t on the cars. We also have some gate-crashers to the interview: Mini Pastor and Mini Romain find their way into my shot! Those two get everywhere!
After Lotus, we head off to Mercedes in Brackley while Craig is at Red Bull now in Milton Keynes. It’s now gloriously hot and sunny outside and not the day to be spending in your car! Paddy Lowe joins us for a chat about Mercedes’ season and what they expect from the weekend. Once that is finished we head to Force India, while Craig has now arrived at Silverstone to sit down for a chat with Manor Marussia team principal John Booth.
Force India are the team whose base is closest to the Silverstone circuit - just across the road from the main entrance, in fact. As we arrive a marquee is being erected for parties over the weekend. It is not just our busiest race; it’s the busiest race for almost every team too. Nico Hulkenberg is in good spirits and looking forward to seeing how the updates on the car will perform at the weekend. He is one of the nicest guys in the paddock and always friendly. I don’t think there is a single person in the paddock who doesn’t want to see him up on an F1 podium. He has the talent and there is a universal feeling that he is better than his record suggests. His win at Le Mans also seems to have put a spring into his step so hopefully that podium will be sooner rather than later.
After Force India, we head to the campsite at Woodlands to film some shots of people setting up tents and enjoying the sunshine, while Craig is interviewing the managing director of Silverstone circuits, Patrick Allen. Then finally it is time to head to the hotel and check in and get an early night!
I am most definitely a night owl so the 4am alarm on Thursday is pretty rough. Despite five years of presenting a breakfast radio show I still hate getting up early. We get to the campsite at 5.30am and, unsurprisingly, there is very little movement from any of the tents. The man who runs it all, Ollie, is up though, despite a late finish, making sure everyone was ok and settled the night before.
We head to the glamping area and while I set up for a live into Sky Sports News HQ someone stirs nearby. I have a quick chat and discover his name is Wolfy and he is happy to talk to us, once he has had a shower and cup of tea. We also bumped into Sally and John who had saved up to make Silverstone weekend their holiday for the year and really make the most of it. Sally even had three cameras with her to make sure she didn’t miss a second. I hope they had a great time and have plenty of photos to look back on.
By the time I do my final live from the campsite, breakfast is well under way and we are kindly offered some before moving on and into the circuit itself. Thursday runs to the same schedule as at other circuits except that as we reach the 3pm drivers’ press conference I hand the reins over to Craig, who is on the late shift this week.
Friday runs to a similar timetable with early lives from the campsite. This time there are more people up and about and I speak to a couple of brothers on their way back from the showers. It never ceases to amaze me how friendly everyone is. I am not sure I would be the same being accosted by a camera crew when I have just woken up! They even offer us breakfast! For those who have never been to the British GP, it is an amazing atmosphere – by far the best of the season. The reason we go to the campsites is because we want to convey that atmosphere to people who aren’t there. The actual on track action is a tiny part of an incredible few days.
On Sunday morning I wanted to find some fans who had been at the gates when they opened at 7am in order to get their preferred spot on the track to watch the race. I came across a group of seven – Jack, Harry, William and Hugh, dads Neil and Simon and grandad David. They were sitting on the bank at the approach to Becketts and I spoke to them live on air about their experience. Jack was wearing his McLaren shirt supporting Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso and the other three boys were supporting Mercedes. They told me excitedly about how they had been to the fan forum the night before and not only got Lewis Hamilton’s autograph but managed to get into Nico Rosberg’s crowd selfie too! Even six-year-old Hugh was having a fantastic weekend, testament to the work Silverstone have done to make this a family event.
After speaking to them I moved to another part of the track and came across Katerina, Finlay and their dad. Katerina was supporting Jenson but Finlay was holding a big Finland flag. I asked him who he was supporting and he said “Bottas”. I asked him why and he said “because he is from Fin-land”! Brilliant!
Once we got into the paddock we spoke to the Williams press officer and told them the story of Little Finlay and I also managed to catch Valtteri on his way in and showed him the photo of Fin and his flag. A short while later I discovered that Williams had sent someone out to find Fin and give him a signed cap and a goodie bag. How fantastic is that? Teams really do try to make the occasion special when they can and that is just one example of the kind of things they do. You don’t always hear about it but it does go on and a lot more than any of us realise.
Silverstone race day is non-stop. It feels like you don’t have a second to catch your breath. We do lives in to Sky News as well as Sky Sports News so I am forever looking at my schedule to make sure I don’t miss anything. The highlight though has to be being asked to be in a photo with the guys from Headley Court. Headley Court is a phenomenal place, it is the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre for injured service personnel and they have an invite from Mr Ecclestone himself to attend the Grand Prix. It is moments before my live into Sky Sports News so I throw Johnny Herbert a microphone and we chat to a few of the guys live on air. A big thank you to Kevin, Archie and Dan for coming on the programme and I hope they all had brilliant weekend.
This year my brother has tickets to the race and has brought my nephew. They are sitting in the Becketts grandstand and I tell them that if they want to get onto the track after the race and maybe see the winner they will have to leave the stand very early and make their way round to the gate opposite the podium. They decide to go for it and while I am waiting in the pen I get text updates as to how far they have got. Meanwhile, Jenson arrives for his interviews with the media and as he stands in front of me his car arrives back on the flatbed truck. He looks over our heads towards it, referring to the car as 'she' and all of us share his disappointment that the British Grand Prix has ended this way for him. It would be such a shame if he retired from the sport without ever having appeared on the podium there. Once the race has finished and the gates open my brother and nephew run for it, against the flow of fans running towards them to get near the podium.
After the interview we head round to the team photo and I get a chance to spot my nephew and brother amongst the 15,000 fans who have made it to the start-finish straight. I take my place next to my cameraman waiting for Lewis to come out for the photo and Nico emerges. The driver that hasn’t won usually comes out moments before the one that has so the studio cross to me and I start talking expecting Lewis to appear imminently…three minutes later he is still not there and I am still talking. It might not sound like a long time but with no notes or script to refer to it is quite tricky.
Eventually, and with no sign of Lewis, David Garrido in the studio asks me a question and as I am answering it Lewis appears with his mum. I continue to talk through the scene and once the champagne corks start popping I back out of the melee and make my way to the fans at the fence as I am fairly confident he will run there any moment. As I am talking I see a pack of photographers and cameramen running towards me all following Lewis. We are still live so I scramble out of the way and he climbs the fence to wave to all the fans. The atmosphere is phenomenal.
Lewis often gets criticism and even after he gives me a lovely interview someone tweets me to say they don’t feel he is genuine when he speaks. I can’t explain why people feel that way because I have no doubt he is genuine. He was holding back tears of joy in the final laps of that race. He feeds off the fans and told me he spoke to some fans who message him every day just before qualifying on Saturday and it really helped him.
I do one final live to wrap up the race and it’s time to hand over to Craig, who has been in the fan village, so he can film the drivers’ traditional post-race stage appearances and autograph signing.
My week isn’t over yet though. We head back to the circuit on Monday morning to interview Patrick Allen on his first British Grand Prix in charge and then we head down to Will Stevens’ home to speak him as it was also his first taste of his home race.
There are not many drivers who would have a TV crew in their home and he even makes the tea! It was obviously a disappointing race for him having been 20 seconds ahead of his team-mate before the pit stop and after such a good lap in qualifying, but by the time we speak on Monday he is able to take the positives from it and look forward to Hungary.
Interviews done, I take the footage back to the office and put together a piece to go out that night on SSNHQ. I finally leave the office around 8pm and head home after definitely the best British Grand Prix week I have been to.
So a big thank you to Ollie, Sally, John, Aidey, Dan, Wolfy, Jack, Harry, William, Hugh, Simon, Neil, David, Katerina, Finlay, Archie, Dan, Kevin, Sarah, Hope, Beth, Nicola, Elliot, Clinton, and each and every one of you that made it that way.
RB