The final main day of our holiday, and what a way to finish – with a full on day of racing, culminating in Tom’s first ever Grand Prix!

Another early start was needed, this time with the first alarm sounding at a very dark 5:30am.  Needless to say, we ignored it for half an hour, before rising, rushing round and being out of the door by 6:45.

Today the organisers were out in force and we were directed to a car park that we hadn’t used before.  The good news was the “laissez-passer” card that the cottage owners had provided us with (normally just an access pass for locals) seemed to let us park for free too!  The bad news was that the car park was nearly a mile from our entrance, the time was marching on and the queues were growing!  Unable to keep up with Tom’s long strides, I eventually encouraged him to forge ahead, in order to grab us a spot in the line.  When I caught him up, there were already nearly 500 people waiting.  The gates opened shortly afterwards, and Tom again headed off with his faster legs to grab our favoured spot.  The bank was already heaving, but he managed to find us a place with fantastic views, if on a bit of slope (he was very gentlemanly and let me have the slightly flatter bit for my chair though!).  Evidently you need to be in the queue by about 6am to get the most comfortable positions, but we were quite pleased with our little area and luckily everyone in front of us was sitting on the ground (rather than chairs), so it was probably better in lots of ways.  We could also see the next corner much better, where most of the over-taking took place.

The fog this morning was thick and low and, when we’d first parked up, we’d even wondered if we’d be able to see the track!  However, it lifted quickly and, surprisingly (considering the horrendous forecast and violent thunderstorms last night), stayed dry; we even had some moments of blue sky and sunshine!

After the customary jam sandwiches, I settled down for my customary nap!  We didn’t have long to wait until the first race today though – GP3.  As we mentioned yesterday, this provided some exciting and close racing, as the cars are identical.

Next was another thrilling GP2 race, followed by the Porsche Supercup.  More tight action!  English drivers won both the GP2 and GP3 races, to the delight of the heavily British populated crowd.  The flags for the top three in the Porsche race also made us smile, as they were for three different countries but all red and white!

In between races, we amused ourselves with more people watching.  The “healthy living” couple from yesterday were back, with their bags of salad and incessant “us” photos!  Next to us were a group of Spanish, dreadlocked men, who were busy perving on the scantily clad women in the crowd, either by ogling, taking numerous photos or peering through binoculars.  One of them also had a weird (and very cool) caterpillar thing crawl on it’s hand, which also kept us entertained for a while.  To our left was an English family, the mother of which spent virtually the entire Grand Prix sitting down with her eyes tightly shut and her fingers in her ears!

In addition, there was much comedy provided by the patch of grass across the track from us.  There is evidently a route up through the forest to this point, which about 50 people had discovered and decided took them to a good place to view the race from.  Security, however, thought differently, and a man on a quad bike arrived several times to move them on (to a mix of cheers and boos from our crowd).  Some of the spectators opposite had set up whole camps with shelters and flags tied to the fence, so it took them quite some time to pack up.  At one point, the security bloke was hanging around to check no-one came back; what he didn’t know was that one bloke was lurking just in the trees a little further up the straight, drinking beer and enjoying the track action – the crowd were in stitches!  After moving people on several times, he seemed to give up and, unsurprisingly, about 12 of them re-appeared about 10 minutes before the Grand Prix was due to begin (bowing to the cheers and applause from the crowd).  He never came back and they settled down happily to enjoy the race!

I also managed to provide some entertainment of my own for the crowd – once by sliding right onto my backside on my way back to my seat, and once by exploding my alcohol free beer by pouring it into my water bottle and gently shaking it to try and make it a bit less fizzy – woops.  There was one comment about the champagne moment coming a little too early!  Those who know me well will be able to imagine quite how red I went!

Thankfully (after an impressive Drivers’ Parade, with each one in a classic car, rather than the traditional flat bed lorry), the Grand Prix soon started to detract from my idiocy, and what a Grand Prix it was!  Although Vettel soon took the lead and kept a good gap to second for the entire race, there was plenty of action, overtaking and excitement further down the field (especially for me, as a Jenson Button fan, as he went up and down and up and down the places all through the 90 minutes).  Picking a DRS zone was a good move, as lots of the passing happened right in front of our eyes (although it’s a bit depressing that the best photo I have of Button from the weekend is of him being passed by Webber!).  We were also glad that we had a screen.  It’s completely amazing watching the live action in front of your eyes, but it’s also good knowing what’s happening during the rest of the lap.  The hour and a half passed really quickly and the race was soon over.  Wanting to avoid the traffic (and knowing that the interviews would be impossible and frustrating to listen to with the ridiculously unreliable tannoy system), we packed up straight after and headed back to our cottage.

I was feeling really quite emotional.  This holiday has been really quite unbelievable and the thought that it’s nearly over is very sad.  However, a nice cold beer in the garden (finished inside as the threatened rain finally arrived), followed by another lovely evening in by a raging fire, along with the thoughts that we’ll definitely be doing something like this again has soon perked me up. 🙂

We better get packed up really!  Tomorrow will involve a quick trip to the supermarket to buy any last minute wine that we think we might be able to squeeze in, a drive to Calais, a ferry, a drive to Canterbury and another lovely evening with Ju and Rich (who are very kindly putting us up again), so we’re not heading home quite yet.

And, when we do, what a lot of utterly amazing memories we’ll have!  🙂

TOM:- Well, what a day!  My first Grand Prix and I really enjoyed it!  Yes, it was a long day, but the excitement and atmosphere throughout was excellent.  The weather stayed good and the racing from all four marques was of a high calibre.  The GP3 and F1 will remain my favourite from the weekend, but the drivers parade was very special in the vintage cars also!  Much more special than them being carried around on a flat bed truck.  This holiday has been so memorable, that it’ll be with us for years to come.  The scenery, the roads, the food and the wine have all been above expectation by some margin.

We’ve still got a couple of updates to do to tie off the blog, but thank you to all those that have kept up with our travels, and we hope to do another one in the future! 🙂

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