Fans the ‘heroes’ during day one at Silverstone

F1 News
Date: 6/July/2012

The British fans are renowned for their dedication to F1, but even the staunchest supporter found their loyalty put to the test during Friday’s opening day of practice at Silverstone.

Traffic chaos, rekindling memories of past Silverstone problems, meant some fans didn’t even get into the circuit until after the two F1 sessions had finished.

But at least they were dry. Those already inside the circuit were soaked by the pouring rain, conditions which also restricted many drivers to less than 10 laps in each session.

"The heroes of today were the spectators,” said Mercedes-Benz Motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug. “It was impressive to see them sitting out there in the pouring rain and lots of them cheering instead of letting the weather get them down.

“Especially because it was quite a challenge for everybody to reach the circuit after huge traffic jams this morning - this was like Silverstone in the good ‘old’ days!”

Bob Fearnley, team principal of the locally-based Force India squad, admitted to feeling guilty for not putting on a better show.

“We have terrible guilt for the fans in not running [and] if they have had problems [getting in], obviously we sympathise with them,” he said.

“The teams can only try and put the cars out on the circuit and give the spectacle and I regret that we couldn’t do that. It’s to do the risk and the benefit and are we going to learn anything?

“Until the last half an hour of today, there wasn’t any benefit in running.”

Despite the adversity, many fans made it to trackside and then braved the conditions to see home star Lewis Hamilton finishing on top of the timesheets by 0.129s ahead of Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi.

“British Formula One fans are the best in the world!” said McLaren driver Hamilton. “I would like to have gone out and done even more laps - but we simply didn’t have enough tyres to do that. Perhaps that’s something we can look at for the future.”

Hamilton, third in the world championship, also gave a taste of the challenging track conditions, which look set to continue for the remainder of the weekend.

“There was a lot of standing water out there, and tons of aquaplaning. You’re aquaplaning almost all the time, to be honest, so you need to be very in tune with your senses or you’re very likely to lose control.

“I think the drivers can probably make more of a difference in the wet than we can in the dry, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of the weekend, which looks likely to stay chilly and wet.”

Title leader and last year’s British Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso skipped the morning session, then drove his Ferrari to the tenth quickest time in the afternoon.