Column: David Addison
Our columnist-at-large has ditched gardening and gone back trackside
So, we are back! Motor racing is go and seemingly hundreds of competitors and more than a few fans are delighted about it. Some of this brave new world (sorry, but I hate this ‘new normal’ tag that seems to have stuck) is remarkably like the old one; other elements fresh and surprising. My first race meeting – February’s pre-Covid MRF Challenge adventure aside – was the Donington Masters Historic Festival as the championship’s press officer. The paddock wasn’t overflowing with people and the atmosphere was killed further by forcing all the teams to park outside and trudge into the vast expanses of the Donington paddock. I missed Professor Chris Whitty’s briefing on cars being asymptomatic carriers, but still…. the exercise did us good.
Amusingly, if this were to generate a ‘bubble’ (grrr…), the competitors’ car park ended up merging with the spectators’ car park anyway… maybe this was partly down to the number of spectators being encouragingly large, on a sunny weekend on which many of them would have been watching the British Grand Prix on its original date. The FIA Masters Historic F1 Championship cars were a very good substitute.
Race control was full of face masks with officials attached to them and, while I haven’t worked out why you can’t have a printed programme when you have been able to walk into a supermarket and leaf through every magazine going during lockdown, there was at least a digital version if you knew where to look in the recesses of MotorSport Vision Racing’s website.
Most encouraging, though, was the enthusiasm of people to get going again. OK, so Masters has a large number of drivers and teams from mainland Europe, some of whom were missing for understandable reasons, but drivers did travel from France and Ireland for example, while even those more mature drivers who you could understandably forgive for being cautious and wishing to shield were out in force too, as they had a week earlier for the Historic Sports Car Club at Brands Hatch.
MSV had done a very good job of making Donington able to accept spectators. We all know that club meetings get modest crowds and around Donington’s real estate, social distancing (again, grrr…) wasn’t a problem. Health and safety notices abounded so any possible risk had been addressed by Jonathan Palmer and his team. It was, therefore, a huge shame, as well as a contradiction, when fans were barred from attending the opening British Touring Car Championship event. The minutiae of whether MSV or the Government was responsible for the late announcement is known only by those involved, but, frankly, it is ludicrous that 3,000 people can walk round Chester Zoo to look at lions but not Donington watching racing cars, especially when MSV had put so much effort into mitigating any risks.
For the BTCC TV viewers, numbers of which increased as they were forced to watch from home, things didn’t look too different. OK, the background looked empty but excellent camerawork and direction from the ITV team didn’t allow such scenes to linger and the racing in all classes was as good as ever. Of course, even for TV purposes things were different, with Steve Rider anchoring the whole show from the TV compound, Louise Goodman interviewing drivers from her own studio and drivers wearing masks talking to her in front of a remote, unmanned camera. ITV was taking no chances and will have been pleased that the opening event went so well.
The decision to bar crowds also gave a major quirk, one that the Stephane Ratel Organistion (SRO) should savour: British GT boasted a bigger crowd than the British
Grand Prix and the BTCC! With the BTCC being declared an elite sport, based on its usual numbers and live TV, it was forced to close the gates to fans. It was a victim of its own success in a way. British GT, which doesn’t generate the same size of audience, sadly, was considered to be fine. British Superbikes will suffer in the same way, but a clubbie motorcycle race is OK. It is a funny old world isn’t it?
Donington Park - as Brands, Oulton Park and Knockhill will, in the next weeks - benefited in part from a day of testing revenue, and live TV does at least advertise the circuit for a day. Importantly, of course, it gets the teams earning again and gives sponsors an overdue return on their expenditure although those teams that sell hospitality as part of their sponsorship package are hurting. It may only be a relatively small number of people that they cater for on race day, but that trackside hospitality, grid walk and team access can’t be replicated at present.
Mind you, despite all the restrictions and contradictions, we are doing better in England than in Wales, whose authorities have prevented a full entry of BTRDA Rallycross competitors from racing at Pembrey as that is over 30 people in one area.
At least, however, motorsport is opening up. Club racing grids, and oval racing grids, are in good health, and top national-level entries haven’t suffered too much. There is the usual pointless analysis of British GT’s numbers having dropped a bit but there is no surprise in that with the businessman-racer needing to do what is right at present. That will rally.
And with live TV and live streaming of most major categories, even oval tracks doing live streams now like the subscription Spedeworth TV for example, you can still get your fix of motorsport without needing to wear a mask...
“A first for British GT: it had more spectators than the BTCC or British GP”