Dell BMW-Sauber F1 Event

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Lex at GCIUK inviting me down to the Silverstone racetrack to meet up with Dell and the BMW-Sauber F1 team. The products being launched turned out to be the Dell Studio Laptop range of computers.

Just an FYI so you understand what Dell has to do with the F1 team… Dell provides the computer infrastructure to the BMW-Sauber team including all the Dell servers that are set up in portable racks. When BMW-Sauber travel around, everything moves with them and this requires Dell to stick to their SLA (Service level agreements) so that hardware can be switched out for new in the event of failure. Also remember that the servers need to run under all temperatures as AC might not always be available. Back to the event…

After waiting another day I then found out that rather then taking the usual methods of transport (ie, train or car), all the bloggers/press would be flying in to Silverstone by helicopter. Talk about trying to get someones attention. On Thursday we all met up at Elstree Aerodrome and 15 or so bloggers and press split in to groups of 4 and we took off heading out towards Silverstone taking the 50 or so mile trip which took 20 minutes. On arrival (landing inside the track) we were taken to a suite overlooking a section of track where we had breakfast. Since Thursday 26th June was a testing day, there was plenty of noise as the Brooklands suite is very close to the side of the track.

Right after breakfast (and standing on the balcony watching the likes of Alonso, Hamilton and Heidfeld race around the track) we were taken to meet Dell. Presentations lasted about an hour which were then followed by some playing around with the latest Dell line up of laptop computers and then on to the round table discussion. The round table discussion was for the bloggers only and was a chance to speak with David Clifton (Director of European Consumer Marketing) and the rest of the Dell team about how Dell is doing and what can be improved on.

After discussions it was time for lunch and then we got to spend the rest of the day watching the F1 cars practise around the track which included Alonso clipping the gravel and sliding off the track at high speed. We will let that one slide though as it was a day for testing aerodynamics so it could be argued that the down force was not quite right. 😉

Following lunch we then took a guided tour around a few corners of the track including Maggots (no idea where it got that name from), and Copse if I remember correctly. It’s incredible to see cars with in 30 feet of you drive past between 200 – 300 KM/H. See the videos below of a few cars racing around the track at very fast speeds.

After the trip around the track we then took a garage tour, checked out an F1 steering wheel (no photos were allowed) and then saw Heidfeld finishing off for the day while the BMW team started checking out the car. This included an engine start which was VERY loud and then an increase in throttle which made the very loud engine start seem quite tame. That was one heck of an experience standing a few feet away from an F1 car being started and revved I assume in to the red.

After the garage tour it was time to leave Silverstone, again by helicopter where we took the 20 minute trip back down to Watford to finish off an absolute class day.

Thanks to Gaj from Gaj-It for passing my details on to Lex. Al from Coolest-Gadgets and SelfMadeMinds, Simon from Zath and a fair few others from Techdigest.tv, TrustedReviews, PocketLint to name a few. Sorry if I have missed anyone! Thanks again to Lex and everyone at GCI for planning an amazing day!