In recent races, we have seen penalties handed out to drivers for incidents that involved ‘exceed the track limits’. The drivers in question are Pastor Maldonado (Valencia) and Sebastian Vettel (Hockenhiem). Such penalties have become more commonplace in recent years as the traditional gravel traps have made way for ‘sponsor friendly’ tarmac run-off areas.

One notable incident took place at Spa in 2008 when Lewis Hamilton was forced off the track on the inside of the last chicane by Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis managed to get ahead of the Fin whilst off the track and immediately gave the position back, only to re-overtake in to La Sauce hairpin.

After the race, the stewards adjudged that Lewis has gained an advantage, even though he had given the place back and was stripped of the race victory after being handed a time penalty.

When I first started watching Formula one, if you made a mistake, there was a very good chance that it would be the end of your race. Fearsome gravel traps lay in wait for any driver that pushed the limit that little too far. The result of heading into the gravel was more that often a beached car going nowhere.

Today, this extension of tarmac is exploited by most during a race. The driver who seems to use it to his advantage the most is seven time world champion, Michael Schumacher. The 2010 Korean Grand Prix sticks in my mind most for this. It very wet at the start of the race and it was started under safety car conditions.

In the following 17 laps, Schumacher was seen going off the circuit as he explored the grip levels in the wet, slippery conditions. The German had started the race in 9^th position but after the safety car went in, he quickly started to move through the top 10, finishing a credible 4^th.

Should Schumacher have been allowed to leave the circuit in this manner, especially under safety car conditions? It is fair to say that if he was at Monza or Suzuka and he’d tried the same trick, his race would have been over before it had begun.

I would like to see the re-introduction of gravel traps, not because I want to seethe drivers stuck in them and out of the race. I want to see them back because these are the best drivers in the world and they can drive a F1 car through the streets of Monaco. At Monaco, if you exceed the track limits, you’ll break your suspension at the very least.

In today’s world, Formula one boss, Bernie Ecclestone, has the pick of some of the most exciting venues in the world to stage a grand prix. In recent years, we have seen races held in Singapore, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. For every new venue that makes it on to the calendar, there are several more waiting in the wings, ready to take their chance on the world stage.

With multi million pounds, government backed schemes getting the go-ahead from Russia to Argentina and everywhere in-between, the historic European heartland of F1 is increasingly under threat. 1950 saw the inaugural F1 world championship. It was contested over seven races held at Silverstone, Monaco, Indianapolis (USA), Bremgarten (Switzerland), Reims-Gueux (France), and Spa (Belgium) and Monza (Italy).

Out of the seven original circuits, only four remain on the calendar for the 2012 world championship, Monaco, Monza, Spa and Silverstone.

Silverstone, as many of the UK’s circuits, began life as WW2 airfields that were abandoned after the end of hostilities in 1945. The first race was held at Silverstone in 1947 and was dubbed the Mutton Grand Prix after the race organiser, Maurice Geoghegan, hit a sheep resulting in a written off car. This first layout made use of the two runways on the site with the course marked out with straw bales.

Silverstone was given the honor of being the first race of the inaugural championship in 1950. Even though little had been done to the site, the track had moved to the perimeter road, giving the Northamptonshire circuit its fast, flowing layout that would remain right up to 1990. Although the British Grand Prix and Silverstone remain on the calendar, its journey has been one filled with more drama than your average soap opera.

Long before Silverstone became under threat from overseas, other British circuits were vying to host the Grand Prix. In 1955, Aintree became co-host of the Grand Prix, alternating with Silverstone. Built in 1954, the circuit ran inside of the perimeter of the world famous Grand National horse racing course. This partnership ran until 1962 when competitive racing all but stopped at Aintree.

During this time, very little had happened to Silverstone, the pit lane had been moved from Farm to the short straight between Woodcote and Copse corners but essentially that was all. Aintree was superseded by Brands Hatch as the new co-hosts of the race. The Kent circuit has undergone a substantial redevelopment in the late fifties and held its first non-championship F1 race in 1960. Silverstone became the ‘home of the British Grand Prix’ in 1987 when it became the sole host of the race.

The British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) had purchased the lease of the circuit from the RAC in 1952. The club comprised of British drivers who had been judged to to have been successful at an international level for a number of seasons. The BRDC formed a subsidiary, company Silverstone Circuits Limited, responsible for the development of the British Grand Prix. The BRDC bought the circuit and ground outright in 1971.

The BRDC have long been at loggerheads with Formula 1s commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone, 81, the ex team owner of the Brabham F1 team later became chief executive of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA). In 1978 he negotiated a series of legal issues with the FIA and Jean-Marie Balestre, culminating in Ecclestone’s famous coup, in which saw him secure the right for FOCA to negotiate television contracts for the Grands Prix.

Ecclestone has always been outspoken in his criticism of Silverstone and the way it is run by the BRDC. On several occasions he has tried to take the race elsewhere. In 1999, Ecclestone struck a deal with Nicola Foulston, the then owner of Brands Hatch to see the race return to Kent from 2002. The subsequent sale of Brands Hatch coupled with the failure to gain the necessary planning permission by Octagon, the new owners, saw the race continue at Silverstone.

On 4 July 2008 (qualifying day at Silverstone for the Grand Prix), Ecclestone announced that Donington Park had been awarded the contract to host the British Grand Prix for 10 years from 2010. However, Donington failed to secure the necessary funding to host the race, and its contract was terminated in November 2009. On 7 December 2009, Silverstone signed a 17 year contract to host the British Grand Prix from 2010 onwards. The 2010 race saw a new circuit configuration being used, using the brand new “Arena” layout.

Today, Silverstone is barely recognisable from the barren ex airstrip that host the first ever F1 championship race in 1950. As part of the current seventeen year deal, Silverstone has undergone another major facelift. The pit and paddock complex have relocated to very near their original place after Stowe corner.

Further redevelopments are planned which include a theme park, hotel and leisure facilities. All are subject to further investment. The president of the BRDC, Derek Warwick, talked in detail about the future of the circuit at the recent fans’ forum on June 3^rd held at the Williams Grand Prix conference centre, Grove, Oxfordshire. “Talks are still ongoing, we entered into an exclusive dialog with one party, the exclusivity of these talks has now ended. We are now talking to three interested parties who we hope we can go forward with and achieve the long term future for Silverstone as the home of the British Grand Prix.”

Last weekend saw the second UK round of the FIA F2 championship at Brands Hatch, Kent. I was a little apprehensive in the run up to this event because this was the first time that I was left in control with my boss heading up another event at Snetterton.

I arrived at a rain soddened Brands late on Tuesday evening. The F2 trucks had already arrived in the outer paddock and had already started to build their units. After a rain interrupted nights sleep, I was thankful to see bright blue skies in the morning, my delight however, was short-lived.

Although the F2 units were being built-in a nice straight line, they were being built to no lines that we use in the paddock. For the larger events we do, we have specific markers we use. This meant I was in for a very busy morning.

To put you in the picture a little more in this process, there are some key numbers you have to work to when designing a paddock. Firstly, the maximum length of an articulated lorry, including the cab is seventeen and a half metres. The second is 8 metres which is the width of the roads around the paddock.

Since the F2 trucks were already there, I started to mark out the middle of the paddock where the truck sit ‘nose to nose’. For the trucks to have enough room and to leave a small gap to walk between them, the middle block has to be 36 metres wide. Once this is in place, you can mark put the roads, which also denotes the area around the edge of the paddock. This whole process took around 4 hours, luckily for me, the only people to turn up in that time was the Dunlop tyre trucks.

Even though the positioning of the F1 trucks put a good couple of hours on to my day, their presence in the paddock did have its upsides. During the week, all circuits run general test days in which you can get a whole host of machinery turn up. The majority of the teams book a pit garage for the day, others prefer to set up in the paddock.

This in itself is fine, they’ve paid to be there and have every right use the facilities as they see fit. The issues arise when teams turn up for a test day, that are also competing that weekend and need to park in the correct place on the test day. Normally we have to ask they guys who are just there for the test to set up right down the far end of the paddock.

When these testers turn up and see the very impressive F2 hospitality  unit being built, 99% of them don’t even bother to used the paddock at all, opting instead to use the sloping car park for the day.

Friday was my last night for this meet and it was finished off with an evening with some great friends on the circuit camp site to see in Paul Havell’s birthday, happy birthday mate

While the racing on the track has been prehaps the most unpredictable in F1s sixty-two year history. The usual melee in the drivers market doesn’t seem to be appearing this year.

The British Grand Prix has traditionally been the start of the driver silly season rumours. However, with Mark Webber signing a one year extension with Red Bull today, the likelihood of a frantic drivers market seems very slim indeed.

With Alonso,Vettel and Rosberg, all tied down to multi-year contracts, all eyes were on the likeable Australian to see if he would stay at Red Bull or join Alonso at Ferrari. Now we know he’s staying put, the two seats of interest are those currently been filled by Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher. Massa, for one, will be pleased to see Webber stay on at RBR. The winner of the British Grand Prix was a hot contender to replace him after it was revealed that the two parties had held talks in recent weeks.

Massa’s appears to be fighting a losing battle to hold on to his Ferrari seat despite finishing 4th at Silverstone this year. While his team-mate had won two races and leads the drivers championship, Massa is yet to taste the champagne on the podium this year. With Ferrari’s young driver programme protegé, Sergio Perez, continuing to impress at Sauber, a straight swap could well be on the cards.

The Merceds question is a little more straight forward. Michael is having his best season to date since he made his comeback at the start of the 2010 season and scored his first podium for Mercedes at the European Grand Prix just over two weeks ago. If Michael, or Mercedes decide to go their separate ways, ex Mercedes DTM driver, Paul di Resta is in pole position to take over from the 7 times world champion.

Tuesday, 3^rd July saw the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) invite F1 fans to put their questions to the great and good of Formula 1.

I must confess that the lack of current F1 drivers on display was a massive disappointment with only Pastor Maldonado there to meet and greet the fans, sign autographs and pose for pictures.

Being a Williams fan, I was in my element at ‘HQ’ where I have been lucky enough to be invited to in the past. To meet ‘the animal’ Maldonado was great, I told him not to change his electric driving style and best of luck for Silverstone.

The highlight for me was just as the Forum got under way when Lee McKenzie introduced Sir Frank Williams to the stage. Sir Frank is a big hero of mine and I can’t help but to get goose bumps on my arms when he entered the room. He gave a short speech to us, thanking us for coming, talked a little about the season so far before turning his attention to Pastor. He told the audience the he was a blisteringly quick driver, who you underestimate at your peril. He went on to poke fun at his driver adding that he always said the right thing at the wrong time.

In my account of the day, I’m going to leave aside the questions that were put to the main panel of team bosses (Whitmarsh, Brawn and Fearny). Instead, I’m going to concentrate on the second part of the evening, where we were entertained by the legends panel of Patrick Head, Derek Warwick and John Watson.

Quite predictably, the first few questions were aimed at Derek Warwick and the investment plans for Silverstone. His answer was that ‘talks were on going with two different parties’. Which translated into English means no, we still need a bucket load of money!

The conversation soon turned to racing of yesteryear and what an insightful conversation it was. Both Warwick and Watson told us of the special mind set a driver needs to put aside tragedy on the track so they were able to jump back in the car. Warwick in particular struck a chord with me on this subject as he told us how he had promised his family that he would never race again after his brother was killed on an on-track accident.

He told us of the special ‘safe’ in the back of your mind that a racing driver puts these types of thoughts into before heading out on track. He and Watson went on to tell us about two other occasions when they needed to use this technique. Watson told of about the death of François Cevert at the 1973 US GP. After he was killed, Watson said to Ecclestone, his team principleat Brabham that he didn’t think the race should go on. Bernie turned to him and bluntly said that ‘Cevert died doing the one thing that he wanted to do, the same thing that everyone on this grid wants to do so go out there and do it’. Watson added that this was when he learnt to use the safe box in his mind.

Warwick finished off this fascinating part of the conversation by answering a question about his 1990 team mate, Martin Donnelly’s crash at Spain that year. Derek told us that both he and Martin knew the car wasn’t safe that year. After the horrific crash, Derek’s wife pleaded with him not to race.

As he arrived at the track the following morning, he was 90% certain that he wasn’t going to race. Upon arriving in his garage, he was greeted by the sight of his mechanics, which had been up all night, fitting titanium plates in the cockpit to add strength and rigidity. Warwick also mentioned the terrible financial plight of the team at that time.

He told us that’ if he didn’t get back in that car that weekend, that could have well been the end of Team Lotus!’

Derek took his modified Lotus out for qualifying and on his first approach to the corner where Martin had is accident 24 hour earlier and went through there flat out for the first time of the weekend.

Tales like this only come to the surface after a driver has retired and I could have listened to the trio all night long.

Hello, I’m still here and more importantly so is my blog.

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything on here, 4 weeks to be exact. I have just come to the end of a very bust month, both at the circuit and at home, studying. So in the next 400/500 words I’ll try to cram in all of the highlights from the circuit as I can (remember).

I’ll start back at Oulton Park for the 4th BTCC weekend. As, has become normal this year, we had more than our fair share of rain in the lead up to race day. So much in fact that the Porsche race center was doing its best to look like the Titanic after hitting the iceberg.

It was situated on a small field between the paddock and the main road way into the circuit. From the middle of the field, a rather large puddle started to appear. A puddle that grew so large by the Saturday morning the caterers working out of the back of the unit had to contend with a foot of water.

The circuit staff brought a 1500 gallon silo on the back of a tractor to pump the water away. We knew there was a lot of water there, but we were still surprised to see the tractor return seven times to clear the lake. That’s well over 10,000 gallons of rain water!

Next up is 3 consecutive weekends down at Brands Hatch, first of which was the Mini Festival. This is a relatively new event on the calendar but with several different Mini championships to choose from, it was always going to be a good festival.

The highlight for me was a chap who was running in the historic Mini championship. It was nothing to do with his car, more his choice of transportation for it. He bought a shell of a 1976 coach, then spent the next 6 years restoring it and finished it off with the same paint job as the coach from the film, Italian Job. Seeing this coach with a Mini in the back was just great.

Next up in my Brands Hatch marathon was British F3/GT. This event is fast becoming one of my favourites because of the close action you get. The F3s and GTs are great but it’s the Formula Fords that I love to see.

OK, now to get up-to-date with the weekend just gone. Again down at Brands, we were working the Historic Super Prix that is run by the HSCC. This is a new event for the company that I work for and after seeing the timetable, it wasn’t hard to see why we were there.

The Historic Super Prix used to be a 3 day event, but it has now shrunk to a 2 day event. This in itself isn’t much of a problem but when you take into consideration that three-quarters of the paddock was changing over from Saturday to Sunday, you can start to see where problems could arrive.

Indeed, it was the HSCC chairman himself that told us of the carnage that went on the year before. So chaotic and crammed was the paddock that 40 competitors had to run out of the rally stage, outside of the paddock.

With our plan in place, we assembled the paddock ready for Saturday , with most cars arriving by Friday evening. Saturday morning was the crunch time however. The biggest battle to keeping a paddock like this workable is to only let working vehicles into the paddock. Anything without tools, fuel or spares in has to park else where.

Around 3.00 on Saturday afternoon, the first teams who had races that day had started to pull out. In their place already, was 5 new competiors chopming at the bit to get in and get set up. Disptie our best efforts to keep on top of this situaton, it did decend into some form of mild organised choas.

As I said, this is the first time we had organised the paddock for this event and lessons will be leart by the time we next officiate on behalf of the HSCC at Oulton Park for the Gold Cup.

Tomorrow will be a post on the FOTA Fans forun I attended yesterday at the Williams factory at Grove.