Page 48 - Adrenaline DEC

LONDON LIVE
As the British Grand Prix looms we are invited to attend F1 in London, this sounds like a not to be missed event, so Chris and I rock up in Trafalgar Square on the Wednesday before Silverstone‘s big race. All the teams are represented, Hieneken put on great hospitality and the great and good of F1 all turned up for the entertainment. 100,000 people crammed into Trafalgar square and surrounding streets to watch the F1 cars run up and down Whitehall. Whilst the F1 promoters from around the world chatted. Chase Carey the head of Liberty Media and therefore the new “Bernie“ worked the room with typical Texan charm talking freely with his guests. It certainly seems their intention is to put some of the “have a nice day“ ethos back into F1, so let‘s hope the days of limited access are history so the sport can begin to breath again. Pop band Little Mix topped of the evenings entertainment and a good time was had by all with only one notable absentee, a certain British driver who judging by the rumblings in the paddock at Silverstone the following weekend should seriously start listening to some of his PR advisors before he learns the hard way that no matter how much you earn or how good you are, when you wake up one morning to find you‘re out of favour it‘s a long and lonely road back.
Silverstone weekend is here and I collect my pass on Thursday morning, it seems London’s event has worked there‘s a genuine buzz in the paddock. The cast of Cars 3 are in attendance along with a few other faces, so it‘s a start. I just hope we can get back to the heady days when the F1 paddock was “the“ place to be seen, the stars hung out rather than got herded by the PR handlers and wranglers away from the very reason they were there... but the world is a changing place so maybe I‘m being nostalgic and over simplifying things but I think the days of real stars wanting to come to F1 were directly related to the huge sponsorship bucks that surrounded the sport... so if we need the big sponsors to keep writing the big checks then maybe it‘s the razzmatazz of stars and glamour that we need back in the paddock. So we can only hope the good start made by our new American owners follows through.... and as for all the noise about covered cockpits and halos on the cars.... really? Why don‘t we make the drivers wear a high vis vest whilst we‘re at it.. the only halos in F1 should be above those lovely ladies holding the grid boards. out those lovely ladies holding the grid boards.
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