Silverstone
Monday, 11th July 2005 by Alex Turnbull
This is the Silverstone racing circuit home of yesterday's British Grand Prix. The track is half in Northamptonshire, half in Buckinghamshire, and you can still see the classic configuration of runways from when this used to be a World War II airfield. During the Grand Prix the airfield becomes the busiest in the UK, complete with its own air traffic control, and supposedly with a helicopter taking off every 8 seconds! (Wikipedia page)
If you look closely you can actually see cars driving round (there's one visible in our thumbnail), and at the intersection of two runways in the centre of the track you can clearly see 3 bright red cars - a Ferrari presentation perhaps?
Thanks to Thomas, David Patrick, Rob, Mark, David Patrick, Paul Marciano, Steve Owen, Lianachan, Jan Koubek, Huw Morris, Rickard Jensen, Nick, Adam Sadler, Mario Sarno, Alessandro Guerra, Sean, Markus, Daniel Jibouleau, Kevin S and Stewa.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
From the looks of the racing lines of the drivers I would suspect that its a track day. This is because a number of the cars on the corners are actually not following any sort of racing line as per would be normal if it was a traditional race.
Also the red “cars” you see in the image are fire tenders, I know this from my experience trackside and also using a bit of common sense, take a look at the cars in the car park, you can tell they are about half the size of the red “ferrais” in the centre field.
Hope that helps people.
I’m not sure if the Fosters logo counts as large type, but the writing in the seats sure does 😀
Not only is Silverstone a decommissioned airfield, there is another one just to its south and a second one a little farther away:
View Placemark
View Placemark
I live in the next village up from the track, and I can vouch for the helicopter regularity, they start at 7.15am and fly directly over my house…all bloody morning!
cool images
Given that the grandstands are empty it’s probably a weekend open track day (if they do such things) or perhaps open practice for some racers. Awesome to actually see some cars on the track though.
I think if you look closely on some of the race cars you can see a small blue “ghost” of the car, just like we see with some of the airplanes!
Has anyone been able to find the Top Gear test track?
This is the Top Gear test track but its not Hi Res yet View Placemark
Ahh, good show. I thought all of UK was in hi-res, guess not.
I’ve looked for and found most if not all of the UK race circuits but only Silverstone, Donnington Park (if you scroll right a tiny bit you can see East Midlands Airport) and a very tiny bit of the Goodwood track (the track used for the Goodwood Revival meeting, which I must say is worth a visit if your down that way!!). I hope more circuits become high res because it would be really cool if one of them had a race meeting on when the image was taken!!
Donnington View Placemark
Goodwood View Placemark
I found the top gear test track on google earth. Its not too had to find. Res is top quality, However the top gear studio clealry doesnt have top gear written on it!
Where in the UK is the Top Gear Track and Studio. I can’t find an address or anything.
Thanks
mark, if all you have is Google Maps, the link Adam S gave in reply #9 is as good as it gets, it’s ugly and lo-res. For the record, there is NO logo painted on the roof of the hangar.
If you have Google Earth, check this out, courtesy of Wingnut326 at Google Earth Community:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/80464/page//vc/1
Or simply check this out, just a sat image with no addy or coords:
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/341/dunsfoldtopgearcircuit1ng.jpg
All Google Earth info provided courtesy of Wingnut326 [he even drew the test track on the airstrip!]
Happy Geeking!
I think that the Top Gear shots were taken before the show started using the field. The runway, being decommissioned, has at least one big ‘X’ painted across it — to tell planes not to use it. You can sometimes see this in the show. This isn’t visible in the satellite photos.
Top Gear is actually filmed at Dunsfold Park in Surrey. It used to be the Harrier testing base but then when it was decommisioned, Top Gear were able to use the track. I live just down the road and and hopefully going to see it in the future. 🙂
The cars in the very centre are two catehams doing the skid pan course and the two white cars are Silverstones formula first cars modified for the skid pan. The cars on the south half of the cicuit are the lotus exiges used for red letter days! and the north half is on a track/test day. Possibly some BTCC cars.
October 2008 – unfortunately the images have been updated, and whilst they’re very nice hi-rez shots (the Big Red Cars are quite clearly boxy-bodied fire trucks), there’s no-one on the track and hardly anyone around the circuit at all (at least, hardly anyone who’s driven or flown in – probably just some maintenance and admin staff). Not even anyone doing the strange “Porsche Experience” twisty-track skidpan thing.
Bit sad really, but it would be hard to get a good aerial shot on a major race day – it becomes pretty much a no-fly area for anyone who hasn’t booked prior clearance, and the skies are already thick with private planes, copters, TV camera flights, military plane/copter/parachute display teams, etc – you’d be lucky to get near.