In 2023 a Grand Prix is an event where a huge number of people come together to watch a two hour car race and at the end Max Verstappen wins. There is little doubt about this. Some interest lies in who is going to come second and third and at Silverstone this year both were British drivers so the crowd went home pretty happy. This was the first such event the Tracy and I have attended and we learnt a few things about transport, branded apparel, woke toileting and even motor racing...

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We had been warned that getting 142,000 people in and out of the venue on race day was inevitably going to be problematic and cause us delays. I had ordered a car park ticket which I at first thought meant we would be driving to Silverstone and parking there. How naive I was. A car park ticket actually means that you get to park your car in a neighbouring county and have the privilege of a 40 minute ride on a double decker bus.

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It's fair to say that Tracy is not normally a bus kind of person. As luck would have it she he has a good friend Tim who is a helicopter pilot, although a tentative last minute enquiry unsurprisingly failed to find him available. Apparently he had to take some guy called Lewis to the track. For the record there are 800 helicopter flights servicing the event at a cost of around 5000 pounds a go. At that level of activity and cost I was happy with the bus.

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The other thing I was well aware of is that Formula 1 supporters love to wear clothing that denotes their favourite team. So, fresh from our visit to the Maserati HQ in Modena only a few weeks ago I of course wore my limited edition (everything Maserati is limited edition) Maserati branded T shirt. The place was literally full of Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes branded gear worn by supporters following the latest fad like sheep, nobody else thought to show their support for Maserati. Not one - I was unique in a crowd of 142,000 people! Now this might be something to do with the fact that Maserati have not raced in Formula 1 since 1960 but I say where is the respect for the heritage of the sport?

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Now I'm sorry, but we have to talk about toilets. The ratio of toilets to food and beverage outlets was sufficiently askew to generate significant queuing for the latter. More 'in' capacity than 'out' you might say. Compounding this issue was the inevitable imbalance between male and female facilities. The organisers either misjudged the ratio of female to male attendees or have a fundamental misunderstanding of the processes involved in relation to each gender and the time that they take. I should make it clear here that I am not suggesting that any one individual is or is not any particular gender, or neither, or both. I mention this because Tracy's response to this predicament, when finding an under-utilised male facility immediately adjacent to a long queue for those presenting as female, was to temporarily identify as a male. Literally a relief to find a practical application of the woke agenda.

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The race itself was kind of interesting. The British fans cheered wildly for the two Mercedes even though of course it's a German car but at the moment it is driven by Brits, George Russell (just out of school as far as I can tell) and some guy called Lewis. I was puzzled why Mercedes feel the need to supplement their impeccable brand by adding the word 'Petronas', which I have to confess I thought was a Harry Potter spell. On further research I discover that it's a Malaysian Oil company, although they also do renewables (yeah, right...).

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More interesting to me was the sudden rise in the fortunes of McLaren who had snaffled second and third in qualifying with a Brit and an Aussie at the wheel. The dream team for us dual nationals. As long as this situation persists I am going to have to shift my allegiance from the admittedly archaic not-raced-for-63-years Maserati to the re-emerging might of McLaren. I might even buy a baseball cap, if the price drops below the level at which you question whether you're buying some branded apparel or putting a down payment on a car.

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McLaren Brit Lando and McLaren Aussie Oscar (both also just out of school) drove brilliantly with Lando even having the temerity to beat Max off the line. Oh how we cheered for three laps under some misguided illusion that Max might not win until normal service was promptly resumed and the rest of the race became the expected procession. I lost track of what was going on some time around lap 30 but helpfully one of the lesser cars blew up and with the introduction of the safety car everybody bunched up and it started to make sense again. You can tell I'm not an expert at all this.

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So after seeing the trophy awarded and the champagne duly sprayed we headed towards the park and ride to find the most double decker buses ever assembled in one place at one time. Our bus ride back to the car was facilitated speedily and efficiently. Fair play to the organisers, it seems this was not their first rodeo.