“They will bear up if there is no more rain, and will certainly bear up for
one day, but what we need to try to do is make sure we are OK for three days.
“So if at 5am [today] we have had a lot of rain, then it could be that we have
to get into a situation of bumper-to-bumper parking on hard standing.
“We would rather do that, if we had to, and make sure people can get into a
car park and out of a car park rather than skidding around on mud — with
health and safety issues.”
Silverstone famously came to a standstill back in 2000, with fields turning
into quagmires and traffic jams stretching for miles, prompting Formula
One’s chief executive, Bernie Ecclestone, to describe the British
Grand Prix as a “country fair masquerading as a world-class event”. Adverse
weather has already had a significant impact on the British summer, with the
Isle of Wight festival a washout and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee river
pageant taking place to a backdrop of incessant rain.
McLaren’s
British driver Jenson
Button, who always stays in a camper van on site, said he felt for
the attending fans. “I really feel for the fans because it feels like it has
been raining for about 300 years in England. It is horrendous.
“They are rocking up here knowing they are going to pitch their tents in a
metre of mud. But they are hard racing fans who love this sport.
“They are going to do anything to get here and, hopefully, Silverstone have
done enough sponging the water out of the fields or something.
“I arrived and they had reversed my camper van into a position it didn’t like
and the front wheels had sunk all the way up to the axle, but they have
managed to get it out. There is a hole in the field but it is OK.”