Other Side

Happy New Year to you all, a time associated with resolutions and new beginnings so I won't defy convention. I will start the new year with a confession from my past. You see I once defected. I went to the other side. I had an out of grandstand experience. My names Rebecca and I've been in Paddock Club.

In my defence I believe I was driven to the enclaves of luxury. The thought of leaving the grandstands for a brush with grandeur started the day after my 20th birthday when the bombardment of questioning started. What was I doing for my 21^st? The world and its mother seemed to want to celebrate this momentous birthday with me, especially if I laid on merriment. And so the list of who to invite grew. It appeared I had to invite everyone with even the slightest genetic link to me so as not to offend anyone. It didn't take long to dawn that a lot of money was going to be laid out in return for an evening with those I rarely see bar hatches, matches but, more often than not, dispatches. Mix this with the fact I would have to forego my annual pilgrimage to Estoril and the prospect of plastic keys and mini number plates 'UR21' seemed less of a celebration and more like incarceration. And so my mother came up with the idea of the birthday equivalent of elopement. We'd paid our dues sat on the damp, grassy banks of racing circuits, it was time to celebrate in style. The defence rests her case.

In 1984 Paddy McNally, a former motor sports reporter and mate of one Bernard Ecclestone, set up the Swiss based company Allsport Management to organise hospitality at F1 events (after paying said Mr E a fee) and lo the Paddock Club was born. An exclusive area set aside for the teams' and sponsors' constant stream of VIPs with the odd seat put aside for paying (through the nose) spectators who get above their station. I deserted in the early nineties and looking back, what is really frightening is what I paid for a ticket then isn't far off a 'normal' grandstand ticket to Silverstone now….and come on, inflation can't be solely blamed for that. Which makes you wonder what Paddock Club would cost Mr/Ms Spectator now; I had a look and you'll get loose change from a pound of flesh. In some cases the price per head to entertain your VIP in Paddock Club can be ten times that you'd pay for hospitality at other top sporting events. Don't you wish you got a slice of the Paddock Club pie? Bet the circuits do too but if F1 comes to race on your track part of the deal is you relinquish the rights to hospitality and the other big money spinner, trackside advertising. At the end of the year the total from Paddock Club, trackside advertising and merchandising is conservatively estimated to be around the $40 million mark though estimates are all we can go by given the shroud of secrecy that surrounds F1 dealing and wheeling.

The Paddock Club at Estoril was perched on top of the pit roof, if this isn't feasible at other circuits Paddock Club is set up in marquees with access to prime positioned grandstands. Teams and sponsors are allocated space on a first-come, first-served basis but, as demonstrated in Estoril, there was a definite hierarchy in the layout. The pit roof was divided into enclosures by trellis and preened greenery, maybe this is where the BBC got the inspiration for so many of its makeover programmes. We were in the bottom enclosure, a mix match of people, separated from the more dedicated sections by the champagne bar. The sections got that bit grander as you worked your way up roof to prime perches above the BIG teams - more table decorations, more finery, more greenery to the point of jungle in some cases. We were above the tyre store and Jordan (before they were contenders) not that I'm complaining, how could I as I looked across the way to the concrete grandstand my backside had patronised for almost a decade before?

The food was sensational, the wine flowed, the champagne bubbled and the toilets had lights in them, and anyone who's been to Estoril will now what an advancement this is. The breed of people in corporate hospitality is strange, especially at an international race with little domestic interest. No-one spoke to one another until we found allies in the table next to us, a group of South African competition winners who'd been F1 starved enough to appreciate the position we were in. There is no doubt this was an experience I will never forget and all the penny pinching, saving, extra jobs of the year before seemed worth it. The view from the pit roof was breathtaking, the noise, the smell and the sense you were as close to the nerve centre as you could be. During the drivers parade I sat at the Ferrari pit wall and no-one minded. Whilst devouring a starter, the likes of which I've only seen on Masterchef, Christian Fittipaldi popped up to say hello. With a point and shoot camera I managed to take birdseye view photographs of a real pitstop. In fact, having a pitstop take place a few feet below you is pulse soaring stuff - I wish I could bottle the thrill and make my fortune. It seemed extravagant, because it was, but it didn't half beat a 21^st memorable for you best friend throwing up on great-auntie Mildred.

On the pit lane walkabout there were as many faces bemused as in awe until a melee sprang up in front of one pit garage. We all spotted someone we knew. James Gilbey, who was working for Lotus, fresh in the memory of everyone with a pulse after the 'Squidgygate' scandal with Diana, Princess of Wales, was handing out freebies. As the token Brit I was asked to divulge all the tabloid gossip I knew on the story; I decided against telling them that Paddy McNally, who's business was entertaining us so well, was a former beau of the Duchess of York for fear of overload. At least it took the heat off the drivers, who on the Sunday after drivers parade had the unenviable task of legging it over the pitwall and into their garages avoiding the camera wielding throng. The drivers proved they were perfectly trained in diplomatic technique (i.e smile and nod, smile and nod) as who knows who's who in a crowd of VIPs.

There was an advantage of having a crowd busy sussing out who's a F1 driver, they had even less of a clue when a rally legend walked the pitlane and as such I had the ultimate honour of meeting Ari Vatanen in peace and quiet. I defy you to meet a nicer man in motorsports. I did get to display my own ignorance of international footballers. He had more blonde hair than me, sauntered down the pitlane with a beauty on his right and a spare on his left, and to this day I don't know who he was but was assured by those in the know that he really was a very important person.

It is not that I am criticising those who's first taste of F1 was in such a privileged way. Far from it, at least this lot made it all the way down twenty steps to the pitlane walkabout, it's more than many bothered. I have two main gripes with corporate hospitality. The first feeds my paranoia. I'm convinced the powers that be spied on me whenever I visited Silverstone as wherever I stood one year a hospitality suite appeared the next. Secondly, why is it every bank manager, plumber and gasman I've ever encountered has been to Silverstone thanks to corporate hospitality and then they come out with the sentence 'and I never saw a car' as if it's something to be proud of. There's nothing worse than hearing tales of the unappreciative who get in for free when you've parted with a couple of weeks wages to sit on a thistle in the rain. I rather hoped Brands Hatch would get the British GP contract as my plan was leave the corporate hospitality at Silverstone, broadcast 'brum, brum' noises over the tannoy and they'd be none the wiser. Some Paddock Clubs now boast extras such as physiotherapists and hairdressers, well you can't expect being at the elite level of single seater motorsports in comfort to hold your attention for a whole day can you?

I suppose if I sunk a pot of gold into a Formula One team I'd want them to pander to me like I was air itself but corporate hospitality has become a business within a business. Entertaining the VIPs generates a huge amount of money and it would be somewhat of a consolation if I knew I'd given up my bank of grass at Silverstone knowing it was fuelling the grass roots and essentials of the sport, but I doubt it.

The following year I returned to the numb bum and wind burn experience that is the Estoril grandstands. I looked across at Paddock Club and admit to coveting the food and decent loos but come the race I knew I had the best spot. They can fake the greenery in the VIP enclosures but they can't fake atmosphere.

© Rebecca Hobbs

(c)RH PR 2007