Photographing the British GT Silverstone 500 

Report by David Harbey, Andy Betts and Dave Nairne

26 - 28 April 2024

Arguably the Blue Riband race of the British GT calendar is the Silverstone 500. It’s generally around the end of April / early May and will often attract a few additional entries for a three-hour race on the full Grand Prix circuit. Whilst this may be a great attraction to teams and drivers, and indeed is a mere 25 minutes door to door from home for this writer, there are downsides.

It is probably not an understatement to say that Silverstone is also one of the most frustrating, nay hated, tracks in the country for spectator snappers. In the PistonClick circuit guide written in 2019, it was reckoned that there are 20 or so locations around the track offering in the region of 40 different angles of the cars or bikes on track.

It is our sad duty to advise you that since then the position has got much worse – especially if you do not wish to shoot through the fence. So much so, that we have committed to publishing a completely updated guide in the near future.

So, what’s the deal ?  Well pure and simple it’s Formula 1 and, perhaps to a lesser extent, MotoGP demanding long run offs for competitors and extensive fencing for the protection of spectators. There are also yet more grandstands appearing for Grand Prix weekend and then there’s Escapade. All of which means that the lot of the spectator snapper is more and more challenging.

We have talked about shooting through fence over the years - fortunately there are techniques to achieve this – otherwise this report would be very light on pictures. There’s a PistonClick guide here to assist - Silverstone Photographic Guide.

Over the two days we had cold, wet and breezy weather, but having checked the forecast I dressed for the conditions. Others getting out of their cars were clearly only going as far as team hospitality - jealous, moi, only slightly ! Oh, and as I packed the car to go home on Sunday afternoon there were patches of blue sky.

Saturday was focused on the Loop during pre-qualifying , where I was first able to take advantage of the fence free window before moving to the stretch between Village and the Loop, and then between Farm and Village for some through the fence panning. Rear shots into and out of the Loop added to the variety.

Then it was off to the newly re-profiled fence at Brooklands for Ginetta action and main race qualifying. The new fencing at Luffield removed any chance of fence-free shots anywhere in this area. Returning home I was a little despondent but, when reviewing the output and with a little “reduce haze” post processing, some acceptable results were achieved.

I had agreed to meet up with Dave Nairne, an occasional contributor to PistonClick reports, on Saturday. On Sunday, Dave had decided to take on the role of spectator but I didn’t fancy sitting still (and getting slowly colder) for three hours, so it would be a long walk once the race was underway; I was at Luffield for the start.

I wanted to get down to the south end of the circuit having heard unsettling news of new restrictions from Dave so I followed the path of the “old” Silverstone down to Abbey (where I watched Grand Prix from in the 60s and 70s) and the International start / finish. It’s all fenced in but I am getting used to this through the fence stuff by now and some rear end shots can be obtained.

Sadly, that was it until Stowe. Club out, where you could stand at ground level is covered by a new grandstand and the terrace overlooking Vale giving a clean shot of the cars or bikes coming into Vale and then out through Club has gone – victim of more grandstands that will be used, probably, once a year for three days.

At Stowe, there is a good shot over the top of the fencing, but it needs a super-zoom and ideally a step. In front of the grandstand there are two photographers slots which if you can line up right gives a shot of Hangar Straight. One feature of Silverstone is very clear here – circuit furniture, support vehicles and the like. There’s also a reverse shot of the cars at Stowe.

The long walk was continuing. Spectators had indicated that the road behind Escapade was not open (it had been the weekend before) and the Silverstone website indicated that it was open. However, the website also indicated that the Porsche Centre bridge had no public access. Mmm, that would be a long walk back retracing my steps. In the event, the bridge was open but before heading to the infield, I walked up to Becketts. Again, this used to have a couple of windows in the fence to shoot the competitors through Maggotts and Becketts – no longer – it’s TTF now …

Over the bridge and a brief stop on the infield side to get a couple of images of the cars exiting Chapel onto Hangar Straight.

The race was drawing to an end as I returned to the fence free vista at the Loop for some panning shots.

The weekend celebrated the first anniversary of the chance encounter of Andy Betts, Dave Nairne and myself at the very wet Saturday of the 2023 race weekend. Here’s Andy’s thoughts of the day -

“This was my first visit to Silverstone since the British GT in 2023. Having read several reports from other photographers about the changes to the viewing areas, I was somewhat apprehensive about what I would find and my ability to get good images.

We decided to shoot the first morning practice starting at Farm and Village and worked our way around to Aintree and also briefly shooting the inside of Chapel and the outside of Beckets. These areas are mostly unchanged and allow you to get fairly close to the fence and also the track in a few locations. I struggled to completely eliminate the fence when trying to shoot at shorter focal lengths to get wider, environmental images.

The location for the second practice session was the exit of Club. On arrival we discovered the area is no longer accessible. The whole area from Club to the end of the Vale grandstand is no longer accessible. You can get to the fence line at Vale but you have to walk all the way around the grandstand and walk back along the fence. We shot from various locations along the fence from Vale back towards Stowe and finished the session at the exit of Stowe. This yielded some decent shots and provided a little more variety.

We decided to start the afternoon qualifying sessions at Aintree, but on arrival were informed by a marshal that the stewards were moving people away and the area had been designated a “red zone”. Something to do with the concrete crash barriers not being bolted down. We tried shots from a few other places but weren’t really feeling it and so moved around to the inside of Brooklands and Luffield. This is a decent place that can give you a few varied angles and shots.

Once again, it’s quite close to the track and I found at the shorter focal lengths and wider angles I was seeing too much evidence of the fencing in my shots.

Throughout the day, my Nikon Z8 performed flawlessly. The autofocus system and subject recognition still amazes me, even after twelve months. The version 2 software upgrade has improved on this already amazing AF. I use a hybrid AF setup (wide area with subject tracking handing off to 3D tracking) that I shamelessly stole from Hudson Henry. If you want more details on this configuration, you can watch his video on YouTube.

As I mentioned above, I did have issues shooting through the fence and getting enough blur to remove it from my images, mainly at shorter focal lengths. I shot most of the day with the Nikon Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR S along with the Nikon Z 180-600mm f5.6-6.3 VR. 

Neither of these lenses have an aperture wide enough at the shorter end to completely remove all evidence of the fences making wider environmental shots difficult and impacting sharpness at the longer end. I will probably be at Donington Park at the end of May, so I may look at renting something a little faster (f2.8 or f4) for this to see if this improves the situation.

All in all it was a decent day, and much dryer than last year, I came away with some decent images and had good company for the day. A massive thanks to Dave Nairne for the caffeination.”

On Sunday, Andy was enjoying hospitality which included access to the grid walk

The CEO of the company he works for was doing a one-off race in British GT and a number of staff were invited along to support. It was a successful afternoon with a 7^th place finish for Andrew Gilbert and Fran Rueda in the #84 Optimum Motorsport McLaren.

Meanwhile Dave summarised his thoughts of the weekend with a succinct commentary on the weather – “A Cold, Wet, Silverstone 500 - Typical April Weekend In The UK”! He goes on …



“Decided that this would be a two-part weekend - shooting through the fences on Saturday and watching the race from the grandstand on Sunday.

Joined Andy Betts early on Saturday for a day shooting through the fences and like him, had heard of the various additional restrictions that had been put in place and was also apprehensive as to what had changed.

We decided to spend the day together, shooting from similar locations and just seeing what we could come up with - thanks for the company & banter, Andy!

FP1 - Farm, Village, The Loop, Aintree and Becketts. The camera kit I used was the Nikon D500 and 200-400 f4 lens - using wider aperture to eliminate fence, shutter speeds varying between 160th & 320th all day. 

Pre-Qualifying - Club, Vale and exit of Stowe - D500 and 200-500 f5.6 (to get longer reach).

Qualifying - met up with Mr Harbey (who had rolled up late morning) - Brooklands & Luffield D500 and 200-400 f4 - again wide aperture to eliminate fence.

Probably my biggest frustration of the weekend was to find that the access to fence at the exit of Club has been completely removed. This used to be my favourite location at Silverstone as, although you were shooting through the fence, you could get very close and it also provided a number of different angles. 

My second, main, annoyance (with my spectator’s hat on) is the continued use of Woodcote B Grandstand. Why, oh why, do they continue to use this stand rather than Woodcote A which would allow you to see all the way down Wellington Straight?

Also, the use of the first grandstand at Copse, which is parallel to the main straight seems pretty pointless - why not use the second or third stand which would allow head-on views of the straight and also looking down towards Maggotts. 



All in all, I probably came away with more decent images than I expected, as, despite Silverstone’s best efforts, it is still possible to get close to the fence in a number of places but these access points are dwindling and when going to these 'smaller events’ it is becoming glaringly obvious that they are only interested in the cash cow that is F1.

I really do get the business model of this but they must understand that when the F1 bubble bursts they will need the fans that support these 'lesser series’ and really should make more of a efforts to find out what the attending fans really want.

You could easily say that not everyone is a photographer and therefore not worried about the reduction in access. Well, if you had a good look around on Saturday, it was obvious that the large percentage of the decent sized crowd were there with some fairly expensive photo gear and not to just take snapshots.

I actually had a discussion at the end of Qualifying with a young lad who explained that he was fairly new to taking images of race cars. He had some decent Sony gear but was expressing frustrations that he couldn’t get close enough to the fence to eliminate it. These are exactly the type of fans that Silverstone should be encouraging because one day they might need them.” 

So, how to sum up the weekend ?  Distinctly mixed feelings for all three of us and not for the first time at Silverstone. Patchy, inconsistent information on the Silverstone website, being told to move on from areas with no restrictions indicated, gaps in fencing being filled midday Saturday all seems to suggest a lack of attention to detail, or simply that the great unwashed who are not in hospitality (Andy excepted, of course) don’t deserve proper information or respect. 

Add to that not a single grandstand or catering outlet was open between Copse and Luffield (the long way round) although on a more positive note it was good to see that the museum café is now open to spectators.

Having said that, 40-odd GT cars at full pelt is a great sight and sound – bring on Donington and the band may yet get back together – is it my turn to get the coffee ?