British Grand Prix diary

Skysports.com has the washing machine on after returning home from the British Grand Prix...

Monday 'After the Lord Mayor's Show comes the dust-cart' so the proverb goes, but it wasn't that bad in the end on Sunday night. Certainly by the time we stragglers departed Silverstone at 9pm there were no problems getting out, and there was no word of any real difficulties from earlier in the evening. The weather continued to tease us, so that after all the chaos seen earlier in the weekend - all the queues, the mud, the confusion, the wild speculation, the finger-pointing, the standard-issue apology and the contingency plan - the main event took place in warm sunshine. Not that anyone was complaining - bar, perhaps, teams that might have gambled on yet more rain. It returned soon enough and later in the day even the press room was not immune from a soaking. Yes, a leaking ceiling hardly compares with the Somme-like conditions some had experienced but it did seem apt. "At last, we feel your pain Silverstone," someone shouted as a litter bin was thrust under the seepage. Successfully locating one's sense of humour tends to be a good way to dealing with adversity and it's a maxim that was seen again and again throughout the weekend. I'll leave the last word to Stefano Domenicali who, like just about everybody, could only marvel at the fans' attitude. Were the same thing to happen in Italy, the Ferrari boss reckoned, they would more likely "stay in bed". As weekends go, it was particularly busy and there's certainly no let-up. If anything, the season is about to get even busier, with the British Grand Prix the first of three races to be held in the space of four weekends. Red Bull and Ferrari are the teams to beat at the moment; evidence, perhaps, that a pattern is finally beginning to emerge? Black clouds continue to hover over McLaren and the likes of Lotus and Sauber were quick at the weekend. But what use is a quick car when you can't make the best use of it? If only the answer were that simple. Right, time to put the laundry on. Sunday morning Heading in this morning, one wonders how many fans here this weekend will head home with a case of trench foot. Our route was a little different to that taken on Friday and Saturday, in that we chugged through Silverstone village this time. It seems the sort of that place might crop up in the property section of a broadsheet newspaper 51 weeks of the year; sleepy-looking with rows of cottages and a village butcher's shop. No Tesco Express in sight here. Come the week of the Grand Prix, though, and the juxtaposition is quite something: the faint whiff of English rectitude mixing the stronger scent of Castrol R. Not that there's a battle going on: from the chequered flags proudly displayed about the village sign on in, Silverstone gets behind its big event and it is this embrace that led me to marvel once more at what a stoic bunch us Brits really can be. As you can imagine, conditions at the village campsites did not appear to be their most pre-possessing at 6.30am. The sun was not shining - the sky was so drab it made a mockery of the date, July 8th for heaven's sake - yet the same spirit of gameness and good humour shone through. A punter at the entrance to one site guffawed as his stout shoe became wedged firmly in the quagmire while, further down the road, fans ate breakfast at a stall set up in someone's front garden. Sky Sports F1 had no option other than to join in the spirit of things a little while later when, turning the final roundabout on our