Dublin to host to Formula One event! - Next June

westdub · 02-06-2012 2:59pm

Monkeybonkers wrote: »

Well I hope nobody paid any attention to the forecast, it's gorgeous out

Yes it a lovely morning :cool: its a pity the show is on tomorrow.....:rolleyes:

Omega28 · 02-06-2012 4:39pm

where do u think is the best place to get a glimpse of the action? (for free)

WoundedRhino · 02-06-2012 5:47pm

Northern Monkey wrote: »

If I'm honest, I don't think it will (but I hope I am wrong). I'm a complete F1 nut and I'm not going to bother with it. Apart from the performance areas there isn't going to be much to see apart from the car not getting out of 3rd gear. From what I've seen along the quays the road is split in two by a metal/concrete barrier, so it will just be driving in a straight line for most of it.

Don't get me wrong, the sound will be immense, there is nothing like your first time hearing an F1 car for a petrol head, but I just have a feeling the overall experience won't be that great.

Pretty much this, I've been an F1 fan for over 20 years but never actually heard one running so looking forward to being blown away by the noise of it. I'm planning heading down earlier to try and get trackside - I just couldn't warrant 75E a ticket, plus my girlfriend is under 5 foot so if we aren't at the front she won't see a thing!

viking · 02-06-2012 7:36pm

Thinking of driving in, reckon I'd get parking if I was in town for around 10am?

viking · 02-06-2012 9:46pm

If the weather is as crap as they say it will be, I wonder will there be a risk the F1 demos could be canceled if there is standing water?

Sitec · 02-06-2012 10:16pm

viking wrote: »

If the weather is as crap as they say it will be, I wonder will there be a risk the F1 demos could be canceled if there is standing water?

Seriously doubt it after the amount of advertising, they will take it very handy though I'd imagine

Daniel S · 02-06-2012 10:36pm

Sitec wrote: »

Seriously doubt it after the amount of advertising, they will take it very handy though I'd imagine

We all know Button is exceptional in the wet!

PrettyBoy · 03-06-2012 1:02am

Really hoping the weather won't ruin the day, was looking forward to seeing some of the cars. The Ferrari owners club are doing a lap and I was really hoping to see an F40 but now I'm afraid that there's no real chance of that happening

Only in Ireland would we get rain and hail in June..

Daniel S · 03-06-2012 1:03am

PrettyBoy wrote: »

Really hoping the weather won't ruin the day, was looking forward to seeing some of the cars. The Ferrari owners club are doing a lap and I was really hoping to see an F40 but now I'm afraid that there's no real chance of that happening

Only in Ireland would we get rain and hail in June..

Sure we're bound to see some eejit in a drift car crash in the rain so it's not all bad!

G-Money · 03-06-2012 9:04am

Weather is awful so far but according to Met Eireann the rain will slowly clear. I'd prefer it cleared quite fast. F*****g typical Ireland though.

I wasn't planning to head along to this but I managed to get a Paddock ticket cheaply so I will head along for a while. I don't know if the area I will be in will be covered but if it's not, I can't see myself hanging around too long if the rain doesn't ease off.

shamwari · 03-06-2012 11:18am

I see the Bavaria City Racing site is down.....:rolleyes:

patmac · 03-06-2012 2:00pm

From Twitter
“@Doylera: I wonder if Jenson Button knows that the quays has a 30km speed limit and that there's a camera van outside the Clarence Hotel @sportsdes”;

Autosport · 03-06-2012 2:37pm

Totally loving it and the pro drift driver loosing his bumper beside us was just class. Jensen put on a great show and can't wait for part 2.

zom · 03-06-2012 3:01pm

I'm sick and unfortunately can't join the party, but trying to see something in internet - usual webcams are useless, and I found only short material on RTE.
Anyone with more luck?

antodeco · 03-06-2012 3:34pm

I managed to get about 4 foot away from Jenson in his car. I had my daughter standing with me. He stopped in front of us, waved and then went full tilt. Immense noise!

Richard Hillman · 03-06-2012 4:15pm

I don't know if it was the cold but I had goose bumps when the McLaren went by. First time I've seen and heard an F1 car, it was glorious.

G-Money · 03-06-2012 4:44pm

It was ok I thought. I managed to get a heavily discounted paddock ticket as had I forked out 170 euro, I would have been very disappointed. Here's the spiel on their website about the paddock ticket:

At Bavaria City Racing we know how to make your Bavaria City Racing Dublin experience totally awesome! By purchasing a Bavaria City Racing Dublin F1 Paddock Ticket you will rub shoulders with the who’s who of international motorsport! Why not take a walk down the Paddock area and watch the F1 engineers prepare and ready their cars before they take to the Bavaria City Racing Dublin Track.

Then sit back and witness F1, WRC, Superbikes, Stunt Drivers, Super Cars, Drifters and more performing exclusive demonstrations for you in your dedicated F1 Paddock performance zone.

Each car will leave their Paddock were you will witness every donut, smell every wheel-spinning burnout and feel every ground shaking performance from every single car that takes to our track right in front of your eyes, and guess what we have over 24,800 bhp of pure racing machine madness for you to see!

So don’t stand six deep at the side of the track, sit back and relax in the knowledge that you have the best seat in the house!

Well I walked for ages down the Quays only for them to close some gate and make everyone walk back down and over a temporary footbridge which took about 10 minutes to cross as people were going both directions at the same time. I then had to walk back down the other side of the Quays to try and find the "Paddock". When I got there, it was just some grandstands with no better view than you could have got actually standing along the side of the free area. In fact the grandstands had a worse view as the cars were so low down.

The area where they would do donuts in the paddock, you couldn't see. They had erected two covered enclosed grandstands that you apparently needed a special wristband to access and they had the best view of where they'd spin the cars.

Based on their description above, I thought you'd have been able to get really close in to where the cars were but I couldn't anyway, there were barriers and netting everywhere. I'd have hoped to have got some pictures but the F1 cars were in makeshift tents and you couldn't see anything.

I imagine anyone who forked out the full price for the paddock ticket will be wondering why they did it and what extra they got. From what I could see, the cheaper tickets down at the O'Connell bridge performance zone had much better viewing.

Great to see and hear an F1 car, but for what the organisers promised for that ticket, they definitely didn't deliver.

Sitec · 03-06-2012 4:46pm

I thought it was a fairly poorly organised event but hearing that McLaren and Caterham screaming through Dublin is something I will never forget, the noise is simply amazing!

Myrddin · 03-06-2012 5:17pm

So aside from hearing the cars, it was pretty much as you'd expect from an event organised on

antodeco · 03-06-2012 5:32pm

There was a lot of 'downtime' between parades. Being honest, besides for the sound, it was basically just a car parade. Saying that, I enjoyed it immensely and really has me eager to go see the European GP in Valencia in 3 weeks

G-Money · 03-06-2012 5:38pm

At least I got one good video. The sound is just amazing.

AltAccount · 03-06-2012 5:48pm

Sounds like fcuking Godzilla!

baztard · 03-06-2012 5:55pm

I was lucky enough to get free paddock tickets, but f**king hell would I have had been disappointed had I payed for them. Just finding the entrance to the paddock was a feat in itself, different stewards told me different directions, and the maps on the website were totally useless and inaccurate on the day. I wasted a good 45 minutes getting from the non existent entrance marked on the map as being on the northside of the liffey, to the actual entrance on the southside. You had to queue for 5 - 10 minutes just to cross a fecking bridge.

The paddock iteself was quite disappointing, i couldn't see the mclaren parked anywhere, was it there? There was about 5 other formula X / GP2 etc cars on view. Then there was the back of about 10 - 12 sports cars on view, lamborghinis, ferarris etc. Yes I said the back of these cars, as thats all you could see of them! haha mad! The view from the grandstand was mostly rubbish. Unless you were sitting in the first 2 rows you might aswell have been in the free public viewing area on the street. I spent some time doing just that along the northside of the 'track' between Busaras and the point and the view there was quite good. The crowd was only 2 people deep at the busiest point. Closer to the city centre though the crowd was a lot deeper at the barriers.

Seeing Button and his McClaren in action, and even more just hearing it was a joy. The noise and the echo was something else. It sounded like an elephant giving birth to a whale! Wow, spectacular looking machine.

I can only guess that anyone who turned up to any of the free view areas would have been happy. The paddock area was a total joke though. Craggy island is right my friend!

osheen · 03-06-2012 5:56pm

AltAccount wrote: »

Sounds like fcuking Godzilla!

When they used to have the BOSS series down in mondello was much better -

G-Money · 03-06-2012 5:59pm

baztard wrote: »

I was lucky enough to get free paddock tickets, but f**king hell would I have had been disappointed had I payed for them. Just finding the entrance to the paddock was a feat in itself, different stewards told me different directions, and the maps on the website were totally useless and inaccurate on the day. I wasted a good 45 minutes getting from the non existent entrance marked on the map as being on the northside of the liffey, to the actual entrance on the southside. You had to queue for 5 - 10 minutes just to cross a fecking bridge.

The paddock iteself was quite disappointing, i couldn't see the mclaren parked anywhere, was it there? There was about 5 other formula X / GP2 etc cars on view. Then there was the back of about 10 - 12 sports cars on view, lamborghinis, ferarris etc. Yes I said the back of these cars, as thats all you could see of them! haha mad! The view from the grandstand was mostly rubbish. Unless you were sitting in the first 2 rows you might aswell have been in the free public viewing area on the street. I spent some time doing just that along the northside of the 'track' between Busaras and the point and the view there was quite good. The crowd was only 2 people deep at the busiest point. Closer to the city centre though the crowd was a lot deeper at the barriers.

Seeing Button and his McClaren in action, and even more just hearing it was a joy. The noise and the echo was something else. It sounded like an elephant giving birth to a whale! Wow, spectacular looking machine.

I can only guess that anyone who turned up to any of the free view areas would have been happy. The paddock area was a total joke though. Craggy island is right my friend!

You won't get any argument from me.

What annoyed me more was the spiel they had about how good those tickets were. There were two fancy grandstands that you couldn't get into either that probably had good views. But like most of these things, probably full of non F1 fans. :rolleyes:

Frank Bullitt · 03-06-2012 6:37pm

Loved today, all the cars were fantastic and got great viewing in the paddock area.

At the start of the day, it was painfully clear that this wasn't well organized at all, the Q went over the Samuel Beckett to the Ferryman pub.

Other than that though, once the cars started moving I loved it.

antodeco · 03-06-2012 6:45pm

I got several videos, if anyone wants to have a look/listen let me know and I'll stick them up.

endplate · 03-06-2012 6:51pm

WoundedRhino wrote: »

Pretty much this, I've been an F1 fan for over 20 years but never actually heard one running so looking forward to being blown away by the noise of it. I'm planning heading down earlier to try and get trackside - I just couldn't warrant 75E a ticket, plus my girlfriend is under 5 foot so if we aren't at the front she won't see a thing!

Ah you cannot beat going to a race and getting the ear splitting sound of 20 cars driven in anger never mind these little demos you only get a little bit of what it is really like. Canada is so well worth going to cos on the Saturday Night before the race the Ferrari and Lambo owners come out in force and they have their cars parked on a particular street in Montreal.

When we were heading to our stand in Montreal we had to cross a wooden foot bridge and there was a practice session on on one occasion we were crossing. The sound of a F1 car going flat out only a few meters below your feet gives serious goose pimples.

andrewg82 · 03-06-2012 6:51pm

i was there today......super event

Abi · 03-06-2012 7:25pm

antodeco wrote: »

I got several videos, if anyone wants to have a look/listen let me know and I'll stick them up.

I'd like to see them if you wouldn't mind

I was there today in the paddocks, and can only echo what was said about the organisation, an absolute farce. What we were supposed to have access to, we didn't.

Setting that aside, I got to see, hear, and smell some F1 action, and I'll get to a GP this year if it kills me trying.

Button is a legend. When I get a chance to upload some pix I will.

AltAccount · 03-06-2012 7:45pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

What I saw for most of the day

Jesus, what was the point of that?

Dcully · 03-06-2012 7:56pm

Absolutely shockingly bad organising today, delays of 30-40 mins between cars.
Eventually we got a nice spot.
You simply cannot explain to people just how incredible an F1 car sounds.

It was priceless to see my 9 year old sons reaction to his first F1 experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtp5cEM72c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6BfMgwmqUs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59LqKIiK1SE

The Davestator · 03-06-2012 8:09pm

Went into the free spots today. Always got Spot at the barrier and no standing 5 deep for me anyway. Thought it was great - a lot of exaggeration from someone saying 30/40 mins between cars, they were out every few mins.

Great to hear the F 1 cars noise when they put the foot down.

Great FREE event

Dcully · 03-06-2012 8:14pm

The Davestator wrote: »

Went into the free spots today. Always got Spot at the barrier and no standing 5 deep for me anyway. Thought it was great - a lot of exaggeration from someone saying 30/40 mins between cars, they were out every few mins.

Great to hear the F 1 cars noise when they put the foot down.

Great FREE event

Not an exaggeration at all, i was there for the whole event and there were huge delays.
The second half of the day things improved a lot for sure but earlier it was terrible.

recyclebin · 03-06-2012 8:16pm

Hearing the sound of a Formula 1 car again was good but other than that there were not that many highlights. I was down on college green for most of it where there was a screen at the hairpin. If you weren't near a screen you would see very little action.

I don't know why they had all the blacked out fences everywhere. It was also a bit embarrassing seeing them have to reverse the cars just to get around the hairpin.

If I had of known Jenson Button was doing the triathlon in Athy I would have went into Athy on Saturday and skipped this. In Athy they saw Jenson racing and finishing 7th overall.

KillerShamrock · 03-06-2012 8:20pm

I went the queue at the paddock area was a joke no organisation what so ever but the event its self was grand too bad the weather hindered it a bit too.

Ended up in the area just after the pits which we were not supposed to be in :O

by pure fluke, didn't move in fear of not getting back in haha
The bavaria girls were there but no amount of photo shop could of gotten rid of the goose pimples from the cold lol

Plus having Button doing donuts a few feet in front of you and having pieces of rubber flying at you in the meant time was awesome

Im in the process of getting vids up on youtube

recyclebin · 03-06-2012 8:21pm

The Davestator wrote: »

Went into the free spots today. Always got Spot at the barrier and no standing 5 deep for me anyway. Thought it was great - a lot of exaggeration from someone saying 30/40 mins between cars, they were out every few mins.

Great to hear the F 1 cars noise when they put the foot down.

Great FREE event

There were definitely a lot of delays and the timetable was totally inaccurate. The commentators were running out of things to say and kept saying the same few lines every few minutes to try and fill the gaps.

Yes it was good for a free event but if you payed for it you would have been wasting your money. Nothing beats real racing and a general admission ticket to any grand prix would have been better value than what you got today.

Sheeps · 03-06-2012 8:21pm

Fantastic event, watching from the front row on the grandstand in the paddock. Unreal. Also had a nice view of the caterham from the trackside bar area which was class aswel

Bloodwing · 03-06-2012 8:29pm

The blacked out fencing would have been a requirement of the event license. It stops crowds gathering in areas that need to be kept clear and also prevents traffic driving by from slowing down for a bit of rubber necking.

The only delays between cars being on track was when oil/ breakdowns had to be cleared.

I can't see any justification for the huge difference in ticket prices for the paddock and the performance areas. I'd certainly do it again but I won't be forking out for the paddock.

rua1972 · 03-06-2012 8:33pm

I was there today. First there was a q for 40 mins. Then walking along the paddock trying to see a F1 car and it's team around it, didn't work out. From the grandstand i couldn't see the F1 car come by. For the second run i took a seat closer to the track so i could see the cars come by. But then the sound, it made up for a lot of the misery.
Next year, if there is one, i'll get a nice free spot along the track. For what you got it wasn't worth the money, especially after what was promissed by the website.

Bearcat · 03-06-2012 8:35pm

It didn't rock my boat and thank god I didn't pay for tickets.

The Davestator · 03-06-2012 8:38pm

Dcully wrote: »

Not an exaggeration at all, i was there for the whole event and there were huge delays.
The second half of the day things improved a lot for sure but earlier it was terrible.

30/40 mins between cars is not correct - I was there from the start until the end of the catherams last run. There was a big gap because the rally Renault buried itself and had to be towed back in reverse!

Abi · 03-06-2012 8:41pm

Sheeps wrote: »

Fantastic event, watching from the front row on the grandstand in the paddock. Unreal. Also had a nice view of the caterham from the trackside bar area which was class aswel

You were one of the lucky ones. When I entered the grandstand it was pointless. I stand at a towering 5"2 and the first few rows were full of people standing. The security guard said "well they're not listening to me", when told they had to be seated.

For the money spent you would at least expect some kind of organization in the paddock.

With the above said, it took nothing away from the glimpses I did get, and it only fuelled my hunger for a real GP even more. I doubt I'd set foot in a city racing event like that again, or at least not pay for it.

viking · 03-06-2012 9:05pm

As others have said (and it should not be understated), the organisation was a shambles. We had tickets for the O'Connell Bridge grandstand and we were sent back and forth from the bridge, over the Ha'penny Bridge to Aston Quay and back again (!) by stewards who thought they knew what they were doing but ended up creating near chaos with a lot of seriously pissed off people. We eventually got to our seats at about 12.15pm.

Once the event began, it was thoroughly enjoyable and my wife and five year old loved it. The pace of the cars coming out was grand, no complaints there. You might have thought there wasn't anyone out at all on track if you could not see a tv but just because they weren't right in front of you didn't mean something else wasn't going on at another part of the track.

The highlight for my daughter was when Terry Grant (http://www.terrygrant.com/) did doughnuts in his little Legend and then got out of the car while it was still spinning round and came into the crowd and shook my daughter's hand (and other peoples). Have just put her to bed and she was still talking about it.

I'm pretty sure the O'Connell Bridge grandstand gave the best views and most of the drivers spent quite a bit of time doing tricks in front of it so even though I paid a hefty price for the tickets, I've come away thinking it was worth it... except for the shambolic organising at the start (worth mentioning again)

Am uploading the videos now and will post em later.

Roll on Hockenheim

Autosport · 03-06-2012 9:15pm

I loved it, The sound of the F1 cars was unreal and enjoyed the bikes too

We were standing at the side of the building with the Bavaria billboard and Jensen stopped where we were and we were the 2 lunatics waving and screaming at him and got a wave which made my day make that year

We crossed the bridge from the O Connell st side and there was no queue, pity about all that black covering though and they should have had more screens

Thank god it didnt rain

ART6 · 03-06-2012 9:18pm

For the money spent on a "paddock" ticket for my son and I it was a waste of money. In spite of having two prepaid tickets we had to stand in a queue for an hour (stretching all along the quays and over the Millennium Bridge) to obtain a wrist band and a plastic badge to hand around our necks for some unaccountable reason. The vitally essential wrist band and neck badge had to be obtained from a kiosk with three open counters to deal with the hundreds of people who were queuing. While in that seemingly endless queue a ticket supervisor came along scanning tickets, and when I asked him the purpose of that he just shrugged and walked away. His scanning seemed to serve no useful purpose in getting through the "paddock" barrier.

Eventually we gained access to what was laughingly called the "paddock" which seemed to consist of a row of burger vans and beer tents, with a few rally cars in tents twenty feet away in tents protected by barriers. We walked all the way to the "paddock" only to find that all we could see was rally cars and drifters hurtling past us or doing doughnuts two hundred yards away.

We gave up on that and walked back to the Millennium Bridge and found a place by the barriers where we could actually see Jenson Button flashing past us four times, each in a fraction of a second. It was then that we realised that if we had bought no tickets, and had simply turned up on the other side of the road, we would have seen more for nothing.

The whole thing was an absolute shambles in my view. It was a total waste of money on a cold and hostile day. The Formula One event was two F1 cars doing only two demos and a lot of fanciful broadcasting over loud speakers while absolutely nothing was happening. I don't think I have ever attended a "prestige" event that was so badly organised. Dublin city council would do well to think on this as they have wasted their time and money.:mad:

cherryghost · 03-06-2012 9:51pm

I thought it was good fun. I got a customs house ticket and witnessed the most retarded crash ever, which delayed the following Caterham run by about a half hour. Things started out well but ended poorly but I still enjoyed it. I'd rather if they do something similar next year to do it in about 3 hours rather than stretch it to 5.

KillerShamrock · 03-06-2012 10:01pm

I have to agree with ART6 The value for money of the paddock tickets was terrible. Considering the price there seemed to be people with better wrist bands ie. platinum, bestquote bavaria and vodafone which seemed to get more access and better treatment despite the fact the silver f1 paddock was supposed to be the best money could buy, only for the fact as i said in my previous post that we managed to get into one of the areas i would of been truly disappointed.

Anyway here is one of my vids from the day check out the rest on the channel no need to subscribe

overshoot · 03-06-2012 10:07pm

think 40mins is a bit much, maybe when the group b cars had their crash but by the looks of it they sent out terry grant early to try to plug the gap.(he was fantastic by the way as was the guy on the bike). the cars were good, would have liked a fleet of formula sheanes as someone said earlier and a bit more show from the ferraris but overall the cars were good. the tricolour start was a nice touch even if it was just smoke machines hidden in the wheel arches.

some of the general organization was ****e though, not having the bridge signed off on was simply retarded. a few signs on the northside pointing to it (as access to the stands) would have made some sense, id say the marshals felt like they were on a loop directing people

Sitec · 03-06-2012 10:29pm

This was the reason for the delay. Honestly it went on for about 20 minutes with lads shouting "You're grand, go on" and "WOEW" and then "JAYSUS", followed by a bang and more head scratching.

Dublin to host to Formula One event! - Next June

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