Five Red Lights Go Out

Warning: F1 pedantry ahead!

Catching up on the last few days of Formula 1 as I make my way back to Minnesota. It was an absolutely lovely weekend attending the race at Silverstone.

Saturday morning, we got up and found some delicious baked goods near our Airbnb in Market Harborough. Even if our Airbnb was a bit of a dump, the town itself was lovely – it seemed like there was a bakery or cafe on every corner. After breakfast, we hopped in the car for the 45 minute drive to Northampton to the park-and-ride for the race. Silverstone lets you pre-book park-and-ride at a number of places in the area. (For anyone attending the race, be sure you book a spot on the same side of the track as you’re staying, or you’ll face traffic hell). Actually getting parked was a bit chaotic – I’m not sure if it’s still called gridlock when it involves roundabouts, but the effect is the same.

Once we got the car parked though, the process was incredibly smooth. They run a constant stream of buses between the track and the park and ride, so we were on a bus in just a few minutes, and at the track thirty minutes later. All said, it was about two and a half hours from door to track.

The track experience at Silverstone is fantastic – there are a ton of (surprisingly good) food options, lots of activities, and you’re free to wander around the track. Our tickets allowed us to “rove” to any grandstand on Saturday (Sunday seats are assigned) so we did a slow lap of the circuit, watching some of the free practice, the formula 2 sprint race, and a few other events. The weather was cold and very windy – I was deeply regretting not bringing more layers. The main event was the F1 qualifying, which we watched from Maggots and Becketts, a series of very high speed barely-corners. It was exhilarating to watch the cars going flat out, right on the edge. The home crowd was overjoyed when Lewis came took first in Q2, and then had their hearts broken when Max did the inevitable Max thing and ended up on pole in Q1.

We got back to town around 7 and got some quick food, then had an early bedtime. I was feeling pretty windburned from the track!

Sunday, we got up extra early, so that we could make it to the track for the start of the formula 3 races around 9:30. Everything with the park and ride was a bit smoother, and we got settled into our seats at Luffield, a series of lower speed corners which provide a great view. We were thankful to be in a covered grandstand, because the weather was forecast to be Very British. And indeed, the formula 3 race was eventually redflagged (stopped) due to excessive rain and lightning. We wandered the grounds and got lunch during the F2, before settling in for the F1 race.

It rained intensely in the hours before the race, and the track was wet-but-drying before the race started, with more rain forecast to start around lap 15. That meant the teams had some challenging strategy calls to make – everyone lined up on inters, but George, Charles, and a few others pitted after the formation lap to switch to slicks. This turned out to be a … bad call. Even though the track was drying, it was far from dry, and a series of early crashes meant the folks on slicks never got to see the benefit of that choice.

The heavens properly opened around halfway through the race, eventually bringing out a safety car. I lost track of how many pitstops folks had – 4? 5? Through all of this, there was some extremely exciting racing – Oscar and Lando made it past Max, Max spun, and somehow Nico ended up in P3, his first ever podium. The crowd was a little bummed that Lewis ended up in P4, but everyone loves Nico. Oscar is convinced that his win was stolen from him by an unfair penalty, but it sure seemed like Lando would have been threatening for the win regardless – and surely giving McLaren heartburn at the idea of another on track incident.

We made it back to Market Harborough in time for dinner and got some lovely Turkish food.

Monday morning, we got up and took Dave to the train station, then I drove the hour or so to Caffeine and Machine at the Bowl. There wasn’t a lot going on (I bet their F1 viewing party was a blast though) but I had an early lunch and then made my way on to Bletchley Park.

Bletchley Park, the home of the British Intelligence codebreakers during World War II, is a sprawling complex which focuses on the war history and the cracking of the enigma. I spent three hours wandering the exhibits and barely made a dent. There’s a fantastic audio guide, though it’s a site that absolutely screams for a cool escape room-style activity. Ahem.

The only bummer was that the National Computer Museum, located at the same site, doesn’t open on Mondays. I would have loved to have seen all the computers in their collection. From Bletchley, I went to my overnight, the Horwood House. It’s a lovely manor house which has an attached set of modern hotel rooms. I got to do a bit of exploring of the lovely grounds, before I got paged into a work crisis (a denial of service attack in progress) which derailed the rest of my day.

Today, I got up early and made the drive down to London.

All in all, an absolutely lovely trip, and I’m thrilled it worked out to meet up with Dave for the race. And once again, I leave the UK thinking “gosh, Kat and I need to spend a lot more time here – there’s so much to see!” But also, my bank account says maybe we need to save up a little first. I think one week in the UK cost more than my 5 weeks in Vietnam!