F1 Fanatic

In a shocking turn of events, I’m going to be at this year’s British GP (!!!). My friends and I are going to be staying in Oxford, which, according to Google maps, is approximately an hour away, give or take ten minutes. I know Oxford is not most people’s first choice of places to stay when going to this grand prix, but that aspect of the trip is nonnegotiable. (We will be staying there for free!)

I live in the US and don’t know that area at all; although one of the friends I will be with knows Oxford very well, he hasn’t been to Silverstone. My question is this: how long do you think it’s likely to take to get to the circuit from Oxford on the race weekend? (We will be going all three days.) Do you have any advice about routes? Any advice will be very much appreciated!

I researched this for a customer about a month ago :-)

Trains

http://www.londonmidland.com/ (from London to Northampton)

The rail station is about 1.25 kilometres from the Greyfriars Coach Station ( see below)

Coach

http://www.nationalexpress.com/ (from London to Northampton)

You can actually get a coach from many places in London to travel to Northampton. They appear to go at regular intervals so that is not a problem.

You would arrive at the Greyfriars Coach Station in Northampton

http://www.stagecoachbus.com (from Northampton to Silverstone)

From this bus station there is the 8 or 89 bus which travels through Silverstone. I can’t attach the timetable but you can download it from their website as an adobe pdf file. The buses run Monday – Saturday only ie not on race day.

Also, if you go to Silverstone’s site

http://www.silverstone.co.uk/events/2012-Formula-1-Santander-British-Grand-Prix/

and click on the “Getting to Silverstone” link (3rd para), it says that Stagecoach Bus company “will be providing a Grand Prix bus service to and from Northampton train station on all days of the event.” Unfortunately the specific link to their website is out of date.

I hope this helps.

You will certainly have options either by train/coach or just by coach

Please check all this yourself though! :-)

I would be very interested to hear if anyone else has other suggestions

I decided to leave the car at the circuit the day before the World Series by Renault event last year when I went to town, the walk to the bus stop from the circuit is nearly an hour (the nearest bus stop during the day being in the village). The bus I got back though (88?) went through to Brackley so it drops off a lot nearer the circuit. The X88 between Oxford and Silverstone dropped off just outside the circuit all day as far as I remember.

If you’re driving there, here’s a Twitter account that’s worth following:

if you’re heading for the #F1 Grand Prix @silverstoneuk this weekend, we’ll be tweeting traffic news from the Highways Agency ops centre

— Highways Agency (@HAsilverstone) July 4, 2012

Hi everyone, as I am going alone I am thinking of parking quite far from silverstone and cycling to the track – is there any place i can lock my bike up/ does silverstone allow this/have you seen bikes locked up in previous years?