World Series by Renault, Donington Park - September 2007

Daniel Pendery — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:43:46 -0600

Better than the MotoGP

Another great weekend at Donington Park, having thoroughly enjoyed the MotoGP we decided to return for the World Series by Renault. The tickets were free so we took the kids for their first taste of live motorsport knowing that if they got too bored we could leave without wasting serious money on tickets. We needn't have worried as they thought it was great and I think we'll all be going to more events.

I'm not going to talk much about the races as to be honest I didn't have much of a clue as to what was actually going on much of the time, they gave us a little radio to pick up the commentary but they didn't work very well, we'll need to take our own next time.

When we went to the MotoGP it was very crowded and difficult to move around too much, so not knowing the circuit we stayed pretty much in one place for much of the time, this time though it was much easier to get around especially on the Saturday (as you'd expect). We'd stayed in-field pretty much all weekend but did get right round the circuit a couple of times and watched various qualifying and race sessions from different spots, I think this'll help to get a better idea of where to see the action next time we're there.

Where To Go

There's a good map of the circuit here, which may help if you're going to read the rest of the article.

We watched some of the early qualifying from the banks near the start of the Dunlop Straight, you get a great view of quite a bit of the circuit from up there, you can just about see the cars coming down Craner, then they disappear for a bit before you see them climb up to Schwantz, from there you can follow them almost to the Foggy Esses. However this isn't much good for photography, there's a big fence between you and the straight and you're really too far from the rest of the action.

The bottom of Redgate was great for the Clios, as they lift a rear wheel going towards Hollywood and you can get quite close to the circuit without any fences or other obstructions, much of that area was fenced off for the MotoGP which is a shame 'cause it would have provided some good opportunities for them too. I had the Canon 100-400L IS and had taken my 20D rather than my 5D to get the benefit of the 1.6x crop (probably better than using a 1.4x TC on the 5D), but from there 200mm on the 20D was all I needed. Although I was pleased I could zoom further when Carl Bradley went off in qualifying a little further down at Hollywood.

We spent a lot of Sunday near the Old Hairpin, the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 race had been stopped due to an accident somewhere down there. We'd been near Goddards when the race first started but decided to get to the Old Hairpin before it restarted. I'm glad we did, on the first lap there was a collision and Fabio Leimer ended up spinning through the air quite spectacularly, it's amazing what they can just walk away from. I just happened to be pointing the camera in the right direction at the right moment and got some great shots, quite lucky for my first trip to a car race. I took the 5D on the Sunday and the 400mm lens was definitely necessary to get reasonable coverage from the Old Hairpin.

We also spent some time on the inside of McLeans watching the Renault F1 Team demonstration and the Formula Renault 3.5 second race, again you're free of obstructions and fences and quite close to the circuit, this seems to be a very popular place for photographers who were ranged all along the barrier. You don't get to see an awful lot of the action from here so not so good if you actually want to see the race. 400mm was pretty much essential for the 5D but you'd get some great shots with a 70-300mm on a 1.6x crop camera like the 20D. You don't need super fast shutter speeds as you're better off panning with the car to get that feeling of speed rather than freezing the action. Most of the time I was using 1/200 sec exposures and apertures of around f9.0 well within the capabilities of the popular 70-300mm zooms.

All in all it was a great, cheap weekend out so I expect we'll be applying for tickets next year as well, might even try camping there so we can stay a little longer.

MotoGP at Donington Park - June 2007

Daniel Pendery — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0600

The weather's been fairly awful this summer so we weren't hopeful that it'd stay dry and it even seemed possible that it might need to be cancelled. I was keen to see if I could get some reasonable photos but having never been there before wasn't sure if that would be possible. I took my 5D and Canon 100-400mm IS lens I also had a Canon 1.4x Teleconverter and a Kenko Pro 300 2x with me. I didn't really use the teleconverters though as the light was rarely good enough. On the Saturday the weather stayed reasonable in fact at times it was very pleasant.

We wandered about a few locations but the best place I found for photography was just after the Foggy Esses this very twisty part of the circuit just before the grandstand ensures that the bikes have slowed down a bit and gives you some good opportunities to get them cornering. The main problem is a chainlink fence between you and the circuit so you need to get as close to it as possible and use a wide aperture. Most of the images here were taken from there during the qualifying sessions. I didn't find anywhere that you could get close enough to the circuit with obstructions such as fences so these shots have all been severely cropped from the originals.

On Sunday morning it poured throughout the practice sessions I tried to get some shots near the VIP building at the end of the main straight and had some success. I also got soaked luckily I'd taken a rain cover for the camera but my own waterproof didn't cover my legs. It was still wet at the start of the 250 race but they put on an excellent show. We went to our grandstand seats then and there was very little opportunity for photography so I put the camera away and enjoyed the races. When the MotoGP class race started the noise was unbelievable it started wet but dried through the race as no more rain fell. Casey Stoner beat the form book by coming in well ahead of the Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards on the Yamahas and extended his Championship Lead. The 125cc race completed our day then just the drive home. It took about 2hrs to get from the circuit car park to the motorway I think if we went again we'd stay to watch the other support races before leaving.

donington park

World Series by Renault, Donington Park - September 2007

Better than the MotoGP

Where To Go

MotoGP at Donington Park - June 2007