Bernie Ecclestone I believe has mooted the possibility of holding a grand prix through the streets of central London a la Monaco.

Sounds a good idea to me! Not sure about the congestion charge tho .. :P

Aargh. Why does everything have to be in bloody London??? What's so special about it that no other city in the UK gets any special events??? Soon they will rename England as London State, and we will forever lose our regional cultural independence...

Personally, I think it's an excellent idea, but I bet the locals will be none too pleased with road closures and congestion etc. I'm guessing they will have to deactivate all those speed cameras otherwise it would be chaos lol. Besides, if they pull this off then it's summat else to put on our praise sheet for the Olympic bid.

I don't understand why it's a good idea... What's the problem with our existing racetrack... Why no run the race through the streets of brum or manc??? What IS so great about London??? (and I speak as an F1 fanatic) :loopy:

In my opinion, there's nothing that great about London and it's just like any other UK city apart from a bit bigger. Maybe they chose London as they feel it's a bit more glamorous than the likes of Birmingham and Manchester and will be likely to attract larger crowds.

They could give it a go here in Sheff.Think about all the one way streets they would have to incorperate.

But then again,F1 cars have very delicate suspension systems........

Originally posted by uncleheed
They could give it a go here in Sheff.Think about all the one way streets they would have to incorperate.

But then again,F1 cars have very delicate suspension systems........

I was gonna say that the pot holes here in Sheffield would completely swallow a F1 car :D

They're not potholes,they're more like the top of a volcano!

Maybe they could just get Schumacher to drive the buses... speed up the service!!

But seriously, why waste money creating a city-circuit when the tracks we have are regarded so well by the drivers?

Silverstone is well loved by the drivers,but it is a dump.I went about 4 years ago,and it was the messiest place i had evr seen.Even Bernie Eccleston has told the authourities to clean up the place if they want to keep the races there.
Not only is it a mess,the parking is shocking.
It took me nearly 3 hours to get out of the circuit car park,to the road.

A bit of a coincidence that London gets short listed for 2012 Olympic games and then all of a sudden they decide to try and hold a race through the centre of London. Erm?!

Surely you must know by now that London is the centre of the universe according to any branch of the media

Originally posted by uncleheed
Silverstone is well loved by the drivers,but it is a dump.I went about 4 years ago,and it was the messiest place i had evr seen.Even Bernie Eccleston has told the authourities to clean up the place if they want to keep the races there.
Not only is it a mess,the parking is shocking.
It took me nearly 3 hours to get out of the circuit car park,to the road. 2000? Aye, I went that year as well. The other time I've been was in 1998 - that time, we camped overnight just outside the track then walked over to our 'seats' (lump of grass on the inside of Copse corner) at 5am and stayed there for the day. Oh, and it was raining constantly that year, some of the consistently worst rain I've ever experienced in Great Britain.

So when we went in 2000 the idea was that we'd drive down in the early morning and get to the track by about 5am. We joined the traffic jam to get in at around 4.30am, and we were only three miles outside the course. By the time we'd been shown a parking place in a boggy 'carpark' it was 11am and we were missing the F1 cars do their morning practice. Three miles in over six hours is not impressive progress unless you're a snail. That and it took us three hours to get out of the 'carpark' as well, had to pay a guy with a tractor to tow us out of the mud.


Granted, I haven't been since, but my general opinion is that Silverstone is a shambles. I love F1 (I haven't missed coverage of a single race since 1994) but I'd much prefer to go to other circuits. I did have a ticket for Belgium last year before it got cancelled - Spa is a good place to watch the race, and travel + ticket + accommodation + living expenses is about the same cost as going to Silverstone. Thing is, I'm over in Belgium for three weeks this August to do a summer course in Dutch language and culture, and the Belgian Grand Prix is on whilst I'm around, pretty much next door to where I'll be staying.

So tempting...

Ok, Ok, I know it's not perfect, but the track itself is sound... right? I just get a bit sick of all the taxpayers money going to London, rather than developing other parts of Britain (Geoff - I will start a new topic on this)

Did anyone see the news coverage showing some F1 cars zooming through London City Centre...pretty cool. Just wondered if they did hold a Grand Prix through London would the drivers have to pay congestion charges??

If we were to have one in Sheffield where do you think would make a good start/finish point???

This has been done before mate.

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11384

I think any where they could hold a road race would be good.

Have been a fan of formula 1 since 1985 and must say the best place to see formula 1 is Germany. That was so good when i last went and the Austrian grand prix was equally as good and much cheaper than Silverstone.

Not a fan of the English one to expensive and so fans like me just won`t pay that amount especially with children to take as well.

It was brilliant to see Nigel in a Formula 1 car again i would go anywhere if he raced again. That was proper formula 1 racing. Today it is too easy for them and not enough excitement for the supporters to watch.

Well lets be honest, the Grand Prix's attract a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions and they want to see something interesting.

Compare and contrast F1 cars passing...

Buckingham Palace. Houses of Parliament, Nelsons Column, River Thames, The Dome. London Eye, Tower of London...

...with...

... The Moor (blonde hair woman), The Peace Gardens (half naked kiddies and paedo's), WH Smith (Bigg Issue), Castle Market (deserted), Ecclesall Road (traffic jam), Davy McKee (closed), Ring Road (incomplete)...

;)


In any case it's just Bernie putting Silverstones arm up its back.

LMAO Tony!!!

I think a GP through London is a really cool idea, but I thought Bernie had already said that there is no possibility of it happening for real?

Does anyone know if this event is going to be televised at any point? If it isn't, then it should be.

I have watched F1 for years but sometimes I wonder Y.
Anyway like I asked at the top... Why whenever somebody needs an F1 car to put on display is it a Jordan ?

Originally posted by wibbles
If we were to have one in Sheffield where do you think would make a good start/finish point???
Manor Top springs to mind.

Chris.

Originally posted by Chris_Sleeps
Manor Top springs to mind.

Chris.

Yeah i can just see it now,when the cars come in to the pits to swap tires they end up on bricks.

Like you Dan, I'm a big F1 fan, but I must disagree slightly with you. Silverstone is a great racetrack, but a bloody awful place to watch a race. I can really see the attraction of a London street race, if only for the backdrop.

This year, we went to Monaco, and I was amazed at how eay it was. We stayed about 4 mile from Cannes. We jumped on a train in the morning, and got off 40 mins later in Monaco. A ten minute walk to the port, and a quick phone call to the bar we'd booked and we were whisked away by the bar owner straight to our seats. We were on turn one, St Gevotte (sp?), 150 yards from the start finish line. It cost £150 a man, which included an all day running buffet. Beer was 5 euro a pint, and we had lots of little tellys and nice toilets. I'd talked my bro, and both our wives into it, and they had a fantastic time. Twenty mins after the finish, we were on the train out.

Compare that with an annual trudge through the mires of Northants which has included 7 hours each way in a car, and I'll vote for Silverstone to lose it any day.

I seem to remember Brum having a big street race (F2000?) about 12 years ago. It was such a great success that the council promptly got rid of it.

On a related topic, I know Shuey bashing is de rigeur, but what about that drive in France? Could any other driver in the world have picked up the pace like that? I think we've taken that lad's brilliance for granted, and he really showed his total mastery of the game on Sunday.

I haven't been to a GP at Silverstone I've only been to watch the testing so thankfully I haven't had to experience such bad traffic congestion. However, I was FURIOUS when some guy on the radio said "It's hard for us to get up to Silverstone so a Grand Prix in London would be great". :evil: :evil: :evil: WTF?!! Get on the train/get in your car like us Northerners have to do when everything is in London! I get so angry with those that think that London is centre of the universe.

I was hoping that they were going to build the new national football stadium in Birmingham but no, it's back in London again...

Back on the F1 subject...whilst I love watching the Monaco GP I think I remember Murray Walker saying that if the idea of a GP in the streets of Monaco was thought of today it would never go ahead because of how dangerous it is.

I'd rather see more improvements to Silverstone and get those lazy Londoners who think all the major sporting venues should be in London to acknowledge that the rest of this flippin' country does actually exist!

**Running for cover**