The other sport which suffers is rugby union. These days, it’s almost impossible for the average rugby fan to get hold of an England international ticket at Twickers – far too many go to corporate sponsors, leaving true fans high and dry (or forking out £££££ to touts).

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In contrast, one sport which gets it so right from a regular spectator point of view is championship golf (where daily tickets are a similar price to F1).

I went to the Open at Royal Birkdale last year. Yes there was CH but, at each hole, the seats available to all spectators offered as good if not better vantage points than the areas reserved for CH-ers. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to got to a sporting event which was focused on putting the regular spectator before the corporate sponsor.

Love your work.

Sorry Mr Big Bank, we will not be accepting your $400k for a corporate box at the Grand Prix because you failed to name the 1991 world champion.

Never going to happen.

I attend tons of sports in corporate boxes in the USA and I don’t think I have ever watched a full 5 minutes of a game (especially baseball). Its all about entertaining clients and friends (and drinking!) – nothing to do with sport.

Inevitably, have to stop yourself and wonder, if the teams were shackled to a spending limit of £40m, could this sort of work continue? The likely conclusion is “no”.

What you appear to be advocating here is that the big teams are allowed to continue to spend as much as they like to find the smallest advantage. Therefore the small teams are just there to “make up the numbers”. I don’t really consider that fair competition. Even with the reduced costs advocated by FOTA its the same debate, can they afford to spend on fuel mixtures?

I guess a suitable solution would be that fuel companies are to supply more than one team, and supply the same fuel to them all. However, that reminds me of the old Ferrari/Bridgestone relationship where the other teams supplied really suffered on tyres perfected for the Ferrari.

The flip side of course is that would we have these “special” fuels on the forecourt (i.e. Shell Optimax, BP Ultimate etc) without the work they do on the circuit. I guess not. But then, was it the work on the F1 cars that gave us Optimax, or work on the Fiorano track with the road cars that produced it… my gut feel is the later.

you get a mix of people who like the sport anf grab the chance to come along, and those who just take the freebie and aren’t in the least bit interested where they are

Sadly this is all too true. Three years ago my Dad and I snagged Vodafone hospitality tickets for Saturday due to a deal his company had done with Vodafone. We were the only ones in the wonderful hospitality suite on the inside of Priory that seemed to have any knowledge of F1. (In fact, I was probably a bit under-dressed in my Jordan F1 Team shirt ).

After the Qualifying, most people disappeared, and there were only a scant few who watched the GP2 race (won by a chap named Hamilton) and I think we were the only two who watched the Historic sportscars.

Looks like you had a great time!

manufacturer hospitality is cool but too distracting in my opinion, but if i want to dream, I’d prefer to hang out around the pits during a race. and i envy pit lane reporters for their job……

Why don’t you post your test on here and see how many pass with flying colours.

I for one would fail the fuel test for sure lol.

i also saw max mosley talking to norbert haug among other things.