how do i explain to people that canada bosnia 1-1, qatar switzerland 1-1, and brazil morocco 1-1, despite all sharing the same result, were all completely different
Imagine Max in that Merc wid Lewis back in form. Just close your eyes. Can u hear the tires screech. The fans screaming. Infuriated radios. 300 penalties. Can you hear the music
Fred was talking about the confidence between them (wall, garage, strategy, drivers, etc.) but I think he meant trust (same word in French) and yeah you know that's Lewis pulling people together
They talking ab a 'pole for Max may b step too far' shut the hell up ur mouth he put together better laps than a merc n a ferrari in that schizoprenic car leave him alone dont speak on him
2016 was kind of like. brocedes were a couple endlessly getting into arguments. seb was the unlicensed therapist deliberately stirring them up. and max was the kid that kept breaking into the room to show off his hot wheels
So per the advice from @dumbf1sketches, I started searching for F1-related site maps and planning applications. Googling stuff like "f1 paddock planning applications" and so forth then led me to this forum which led me to this list of planning documents for Silverstone from which I was actually able to download the plans and they were a MOTHERLODE.
I went through the entire 100+ page planning document and extracted out the images and info that I thought were relevant, based on what my non-construction/architect-trained brain was able to parse.
I'm going to split what I found into two parts:
This part, part 1, which is about the pit buildings (garages + what lives above and beside the garages). This is the long skinny compound of buildings that stretches along the pit lane (and usually sits in front of the hospitality buildings - so you'll have hospitality || pit buildings || pit lane || race track)
Part 2, about the media and hospitality floorplans
Note: the pit building plans are all split into "1-22" and "22-44" (the two different halves of the pit buildings corresponding to different garages/compounds). In some cases, if the plans are the same or there's nothing interesting in one of the halves, I've only included one of them; in some cases I've included both.
Predictably, tumblr killed the resolution of these images a lot, so they're all in an imgur album here and linked individually underneath the tumblr embeds. Note that if it opens to an imgur page where the image is still kind of small even when expanded, you can right click + open image in new tab (make sure the URL ends with .png to be sure you've got the actual full res version, basically).
Pit buildings: elevations
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I believe this is the front/back of the building. It's actually a pretty familiar visual from the TV broadcast: you can imagine the cars pulling into their garage bays, but the most important note is how at the end of the garages, we're attached to what I believe is "Pit Building 1" in the Australia site map. As we'll see in the floorplans below, this houses race control and other neat stuff.
Not including 22-44 because they're basically just more garages and I think a utility tower or somesuch.
Pit buildings: ground floor
1-22:
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On the right-hand side of our image we've got our row of garages, no surprise there
I'm gonna try and do a post on the layout of the individual garages btw since I was researching that too. But we do also tend to see into those a lot during race day.
What's really worthwhile here is the left-hand side of the image: the technical/administrative complex with utilities, race control, offices, and meeting rooms
Not embedding 22-24 because it's just garages, building services, a washroom, etc.
Pit buildings: first floor
1-22:
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This has the podium! So this is super helpful to me because it means I could now write that a podium-nabbing driver would climb the stairs from their garage to Pit Building 1
We've also got the driver's briefing & press conference area right behind the podium, and a cafeteria on the other side of it (unclear who uses the cafeteria - I'm assuming press/media)
Then on the other side of that HUGE press room we've got assorted offices and lounges. Also unclear to me if this is for team/driver use or admin, media, etc.
Then, to the right of the "photographer's seats" section, we've got lounges lounges lounges, storage and corridors - I THINK those uniform blocks (which we'll see continued in the 22-44 half of the diagrams) may be team-specific.
Note that Monaco has a special layout Charles actually refers to this area (above the garages) as "hospitality" and both the first and second floor are explicitly team offices and meeting rooms. So it seems like a safe assumption that everything to the right of photographer's seats may be team-specific?
This has the podium! So this is super helpful to me because it means I could now write that a podium-nabbing driver would climb the stairs from their garage to Pit Building 1
We've also got the driver's briefing & press conference area right behind the podium, and a cafeteria on the other side of it (unclear who uses the cafeteria - I'm assuming press/media)
Then on the other side of that HUGE press room we've got assorted offices and lounges. Also unclear to me if this is for team/driver use or admin, media, etc.
Then, to the right of the "photographer's seats" section, we've got lounges lounges lounges, storage and corridors - I THINK those uniform blocks (which we'll see continued in the 22-44 half of the diagrams) may be team-specific.
Note that Monaco has a special layout Charles actually refers to this area (above the garages) as "hospitality" and both the first and second floor are explicitly team offices and meeting rooms. So it seems like a safe assumption that everything to the right of photographer's seats may be team-specific?
22-24:
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Same pattern repeats of lounge + storage + corridor.
Pit buildings: second floor
1-22:
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Looks like mostly terraces & VIP lounges. If anyone notices anything interesting I missed about this floor call it out in the comments/tags!
22-44:
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Biiiig terrace.
Pit buildings: third floor (roof)
1-22:
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Roofs, another terrace and VIP lounge.
22-44:
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It's... a roof.
Pit building: special extra roof
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Note that this is 1-12 not 22 - this presumably corresponds to the area in the third floor diagram above that's not covered/blacked out.
So... that's an example floor plan of a pit building/garage! A couple of other interesting tidbits from the Silverstone pit plans:
There's a pedestrian tunnel running underneath the pit lane and race track
Could be a fun little detail if you have people walking around the paddock/track.
Here's the side elevation of the end of the pit buildings
This is what they'd look like if you were looking at them from either end. In case it's helpful to visualize.
There's a scrutineering building, a starter's platform, and a shower building
Tumblr won't allow me to upload any more images into this post, and the plans for those don't provide too much value to me plus I can't really tell where they sit in the paddock relative to other buildings. But they + the pedestrian tunnel and side elevation are all on imgur here, and good to know that they exist, especially "shower building" as a whole separate thing!
Silverstone planning doc spelunking pt 2: media & hospitality + odds and ends.
All images exist in high res on imgur.
So the other major part of the Silverstone paddock is the media + hospitality + race admin complex. There are a couple of diagrams in the planning doc which suggests that Silverstone is laid out similarly to Australia (and most other tracks) where the hospitality complex sits behind the pit buildings. Unfortunately even in the original doc, those images were potato quality, for example:
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But you can imagine all of hospitality/media/race administration (blue buildings) sitting behind the pit buildings, which are on the other side of the green strip, with the pit lane on the other side of the pit buildings. Here's another potato quality elevation diagram:
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From this we can see that race admin is attached to media + hospitality, though it's not 100% clear to me where it lives in the ensuing floor plans, or the very first diagram in this post. But taking it for granted that race admin lives somewhere in this complex...
Ground floor
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First floor
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Second floor
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Roof
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Race admin building floorplan
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I've presented these without comment since the media + hospitality floorplans are pretty straightforward, but hopefully still worthwhile! The only thing that's interesting to me is that comment on the first floor sketch of the race admin building about the podium + driver's briefing room - those are pretty clearly in the pit building from the previous post, and as far as I can tell the race admin building isn't connected to that building... so maybe it's just a random note? Or maybe I'm confused about something.
Anyway, this was a super valuable exercise for me and hopefully provides some value to others! 💖
Finally, my long-winded ass self's attempt at a summary of the most important things I've learned from the Australia site map & Silverstone plans. What are the key areas of an F1 paddock and how do they fit together?
It's a safe bet to assume that the F1 paddock is laid out with team hospitality buildings set behind the pit buildings.
So: hospitality -> road/path (maybe some green space) -> pit buildings -> pit lane -> race track
Monaco may be an exception here since in a Ferrari vid, Charles mentions that it's kind of a unique track and he calls the area above the Ferrari garage "hospitality". More research needed. But in general:
Pit buildings include the garages, as well as a complex at the end with race control and a lot of offices
The complex with race control + offices, at least in Silverstone, also has the podium and driver's briefing room and various press conference rooms and photographer seats on the first floor (second floor for North Americans)
As you can see in that image, above the team garages, this same floor has what I assume are team-specific areas with a lounge, kitchen, washrooms, and storage area
Upper floors of the pit buildings just have some terraces (presumably for VIP guests and/or team members to watch the pit lane?) and VIP lounges
Hospitality will include lounge areas, refreshment, catering, etc. and I believe is generally open to paid VIP guests and guests of the team
The hospitality building may be attached to the media building (as in Silverstone)
Unclear if "FOM hospitality" in Australia = media building or not. In Silverstone, the media building seems to just have a "media centre" (maybe for journalists/press people to work, watch the race, conduct interviews...? not 100% sure yet on this)
In Australia, there's a "media pen" in between the main row of hospitalities, and Sauber+FIA hospitality off across the road. This appears to be an impermanent structure/maybe a covered area, rather than a formal building. Presumably where post-race/post-quali interviews and such occur.
Silverstone also has a race administration building attached to hospitality/media, which is mostly just offices and such
The Australia site map also includes a gas & fuel compound, an international broadcast compound, FOM dining, and a building just marked with the F1 logo
The Silverstone plans have diagrams for a shower building, a scrutineering building, and the starter's platform, although I can't find a map that places these buildings in relation to others. But if you're looking for locations for a fic, they exist!
Parking (or pick-up/drop-off) is probably a wildcard. In Silverstone there's VIP parking right behind the hospitality/media compound, in Australia it's way further back from everything behind the international broadcast compound. Unclear which roads cutting through the paddock allow vehicle traffic.
... well that's still pretty long-winded but nice to have it written out like that. My brain needs a break at this point but I'm also gonna dig into the paddock tour videos recommended by this kind anon for more colour/detail!
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