Bespectacled Portuguese fact stranger Werke Esperiense dispenses some drivel about this weekend’s race
In order the maintain the distinctive ‘Silverstone smell’, in the run up to the race all spectator areas are regularly doused in a fine mist of burnt fat and weak vinegar.
For the first time in living memory, the Red Arrows will not perform before the race this year because the date clashes with a friend’s birthday pub lunch.
Silverstone has the worst spectator fatality rate of any F1 venue in the world. In 2010 alone, five people drowned in a campsite, seven people starved to death in a traffic jam whilst trying to leave the track and two people died from exhaustion after realising they’d parked in the wrong place and had to walk 470 miles to get to their seats.
Diversions for the crowd this year include F1 driving simulators, F1 pit stop simulators and the Neil Horan simulator which allows punters to experience the feeling of running down the track during a race like a priestly Irish twat.
The 2007 British Grand Prix was almost cancelled after BRDC president Damon Hill arrived at the track on race morning only to realise he’d left the keys at home. Fortunately, canny Jackie Stewart was on hand with a spare set he’d ‘forgotten’ to give back.
No one can get around the Silverstone site faster than Eddie Jordan thanks to a complex network of low tunnels he built when his F1 factory was across the road. To this day, the tunnels allow him to scuttle rapidly from one place to another like a bollocks talking mole.
Some visitors erroneously assume that the thick cloud of helicopters above the track on race weekend is caused by VIPs arriving. In fact, it is the result of a strange natural phenomenon called ‘helimagnetism’ which affects the whole Silverstone area, causing all helicopters within a 100 mile radius to be sucked inexorably into the airspace and it goes on all year round, much to the irritation of local residents and Noel Edmonds.
