In conjunction with the videos that Steven took at during his visit to Silverstone for the recent test session Steven also wrote the article below. It makes for very interesting reading.

After finally making my way home after a 350 mile round trip today (15/09/05) I have to admit I've had a brilliant day at the final F1 test of 2005 at Silverstone, no matter how bad the weather was.

I set off at 6am from my home town and arrived at the track by 9.30am just to grab some breakfast at the Brooklands Suite, the cars had already hit the track as I could hear them in the background, traction control spluttering away in the distance. The building is based next to the BRDC clubhouse, pretty much overlooking the complex section at the end of the lap. The building was nice and our suite was too, the staff on hand were very helpful and happy to meet our needs. Then again for £100 per head they should be!

After eating we hit the covered terraces, the track was wet but it had begun to dry out, most cars were running inters at this point. Both Nico and Pizzonia were out and pushing hard, as was Liuzzi and Klien in the Red Bulls, Klien especially so. The lone Jordan was running too, the kid driving that car was taking some odd racing lines, taking chunks from the wet apex and getting it all wrong. It wasn't long before he dropped it at Woodcote corner, the final corner onto pit straight but its hardly a corner really. He ended up near the pit entry in the gravel, its unheard of to get it wrong there. After around 15mins of a red flagged session they were back out again but it wasn't long before the track was closed again and a wagon driving the track with a car on its back. It was Nico's FW27.

By this time it was around 1130am and the rain was pouring down, the cars were venturing out but only for the odd lap or two and no sooner had they come out than Pizzonia had lost it at the entry to Luffied, right in front of us. He looked like he'd just spun into the gravel but after speaking with a Williams mechanic later on he'd actually torn up one corner of the car. The Toyotas of Ralf and Panis then made a move but weren't really pushing, Panis seemed especially slow and didn't do much running throughout the day.

12pm saw lunch being served and very nice it was too. Chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella and a white wine sauce with freshly cooked vegetables and Pilau rice was the main course followed by a two tone chocolate mouse or apple tarlet and creme fresh. Tea, coffee, juice and water was served all day with a compliment of biscuits I might add. Around the table was a Japanese woman who had flown from Tokyo three days previous just so she could attend the test session. She had paid to attend the hospitality suite at Brooklands on all three days of the test and admitted she was in love with Kimi and followed him all over the world.....someone obviously forgot to tell her that he hasn't been anywhere near Silverstone since the British GP in July! She was devoted and was also a McLaren fanclub member, she seemed to know certain McLaren team members personally and said she once got a lift from the track to Silverstone village from Mark Arnall who works for McLaren. She's obviously a regular diehard.

1.05pm was the moment we had all been waiting for, 60-70 people who paid for the hospitality pass all wanted this bit more than anything else and that was to have the pit and paddock tour. We made our way out of the Brooklands building and over to race control (the part of the main building were the podium is) and there we were ushered onto the pit lane. After getting my camcorder out and filming virtually everything that moved - and didn't, I got to the Renault garage which unfortunately was shut. You could see the guys preparing to leave as they were cleaning wheels and unplugging the monitors from the pit wall. Unfortunate.

Then I got to the good stuff, the Williams pit garage. They had their screens up covering our view but with the aid of a camcorder and a high reach on tip toes I got a good view of the FW27 minus bodywork. I then moved around to the side which had an opening, around 25 of us fighting to get to the front to get a better view. There were a few mechanics there, I barged my way in and began filming the car as discreetly as possible, I stood next to a sign emblazoned with the message "No photography or camera equipment in this area" - ooops. Ah well the place was full of people with cameras, it was rude not to film it.

Things started to change after this point as there was more movement in the garage, more mechanics were fiddling about with the car and its at this point I began asking the mechanics who had spun earlier and what had happened. Both guys had spun, Nico's spin caused no damage while Pizzonia caused minor bodywork repairs. I started getting some quite good close-ups of the car with no nose on, engine cover off and wheel uprights bare, it was quite a spectacle to see up close. The car, and especially the nose, front wing and engine cover were no more than two feet away from me, I wanted to reach out and grab it but I thought best of it. No sooner had this happened than they begun to pull the shutters down and closed the doors, I must have put the kiss of death on it. I wasn't happy with that so sauntered off to the pit wall which was empty.

With my camera still rolling I entered the pit wall and on helping myself under the rain cover I noticed the monitor on the desk had all the telemetry of the day on it, lap times etc. After a good glance I also noticed a piece of paper beside it, it was an internal e-mail from Geoff Dymott to Tony Ross suggesting ways to improve Pizzonia's current problems. It described Pizzonia's problems over the last two races as mainly with the upshift and clutch control and requested him to improve it and to ask BMW to 'tweak the shift lights on the upshift'. It was nothing top secret but interesting to know nonetheless.

Things moved on to the Red Bull garage as things had quietened down like a morgue over at Williams. There Red Bull had two cars on show although briefly as they had their screens erected. That put most off and with Toyota right next door and having quite low screens, everyone crowded around them to get a glimpse of their TF105 'B' spec. I got some great footage here as pretty soon after arrival the guys started her up and started blipping the engine giving the crowd something to see and hear. No Ralf or Panis appeared but the car was the main attraction and ten minutes of covering the Toyota was enough, next stop - Jordan.

Over at the Jordan garage was just a lonely old EJ15, not the new spec but the old one. There were no covers, no screens and no team members blocking our view and it was an open forum to take as many pictures and as much footage as you wanted. So I did. Its quite a basic car aerodynamically compared to the Williams and Toyota with all their tiny intricate detailing but it was still a beautiful machine to stand next to. Only in the flesh do you get to see these cars elegant lines and crisp bodywork creases and most notably how big they actually are. They are much bigger close up than you imagine and the length of them surprised me. At this point I could hear the sound of an engine firing up and the crowd moved back up the pit lane.

Toyota had fired up their engine again wowing the surrounding hoard of VIP's. Then another one fired up, it was the Red Bulls. They had become jealous of the huge crowd next door at Toyota and had pulled their screens back giving us an open view of the car, a mechanic with a piece of equipment in his hand blipping the throttle manually. The sound was fantastic, ear piercing almost, but so exciting.

After mulling around for another 30 minutes it was time to head out as the teams wanted to get back to track running after their dinner break. On the way back we spotted the Williams garage was open again so I got another sneaky look at the car again while the pit lane manager was shouting at us to leave immediately. After repeated calls we started to walk off slowly but not before I snuck my camcorder into the second Williams garage where they keep all the fuel and tyres. I spotted Nico talking to a Michelin technician and while filming him he spotted me. He was the one and only driver I spotted all day. It also seemed quite clear that the lower the team, the better treatment the fans received. Jordan, Toyota and Red Bull were very accommodating of the fans and even humoured us by blipping the engines but I expected a bit more from Williams, at least for them to start the thing up. Renault never even showed their face! One funny moment was when a Ferrari fan began walking down the pit lane dressed in a replica Michael Schumacher/Ferrari race suit. He had the boots on and everything and must have been in his mid 40's, was balding and was still working off the pounds he put on last Christmas, the and Christmas before. One mechanic from Renault and one from Williams were overheard talking and one said "Hey, there's Michael over there, damn he's looking rough these days. Maybe he's on the carbohydrate diet because it certainly isn't Atkins". I was in stitches and after looking at the fella myself you so had to be there. I have the guy on film and its hilarious!

After nearly being forcibly ejected out of the pit lane it was time for the paddock tour at 2pm. They held us for five minutes before giving us free reign to walk were we wanted in the paddock area. I naturally headed straight for the team trucks hoping to see some drivers in between a HGV talking to an engineer or something but no such luck. Renault had a full compliment of five trucks, as did Williams, Red Bull two, Toyota three and Jordan two. Michelin had about 5 trucks and BStone just the one.

Each team had their hospitality motorhome/tents. Williams had by far the biggest one, in fact it had two, a huge one in the centre of the paddock and a smaller one next to it. I'd say it seated around 150 guests in the main one which is quite impressive. It was at this point that I saw that guy who joined the team last year, the one who is related to the Royal family, he was texting away on his phone.

After a brief paddock tour it was back to the Brooklands building for more track action and refreshments. The track had begun to dry up at this stage and the sun was out but no driver had ventured out onto dries while I was there. Klien seemed to be pushing it more than any other driver by quite some distance but they all seemed on the egde. Our car was by far the nosiest on track, you could tell a Williams was coming around when it was just coming through Farm and was not even in view. It used more traction control than any other and its application of the aid was extremely noisy, as I pointed out in my last test session report back in June. Things don't seem to have improved much in that sense as the Red Bulls and Toyotas didn't seem to use much, even in the wettest of conditions. The Jordan made some great sounds under deceleration throughout the day, it seemed to backfire every time and it was completely different to the Toyota despite having the same engines.

At 3.30pm I decided to pack up as my battery had run and out on my camcorder and I was getting tired, not to mention dreading a 3 hour drive home but at least I had over 45 minutes of footage from the day on film.

It was a great day out and I will certainly be doing the hospitality tour again next year some time. If you want the experience of being so close to an F1 car that you can almost touch it and having the freedom to do that without 100,000 people all trying to join you, as would be the case at the Grand Prix, then F1 testing is the best place for it. For £100 I'd say that was great value for money after today's experience.