Catering at the British Grand Prix presents unseen challenges

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Lewis Hamilton Formula 1 World ChampionFormula 1 is a glamorous circus with a British world champion in Lewis Hamilton and no shortage of razzmatazz and oversized Champagne bottles.

Certainly it's a fast paced, occasionally tedious, sort of do, so you'd expect catering for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone to be an exciting, no-time-to-catch-your breath, sort of affair.

And you'd be right. And then some, if caterer Aspire Hospitality's experiences are anything to go by.

Having won the deal to cater at the circuit in 2007, and another at Towcester race course last month, the relationship so far has been a rewarding one that has, naturally enough, involved a steep learning curve for the newly formed group, which consists of independent caterers.

While you might think that running the British Grand Prix at Silverstone each summer would naturally involve a week or so of preparation ahead of the race weekend itself, the truth is somewhat different.

In fact five-and-a-half weeks ahead of the grand prix in June this year the race engineers turned up to test tyres, smoke and listen to heavy metal (one presumes), in one of those heart-stopping moments that all caterers face at some point in their career.

Suddenly Aspire found itself charged with producing 5,000 covers in the run in to the bit that was supposed to be the busy part.

To put that it in pant wetting perspective, that's about twice as many covers as are served at the Chelsea Flower Show and three times that of the Henley Regatta before Jenson Button has even seen his first Honda engine let-go.

Needless to say the good people at Aspire got their motors running, avoided the freeway which was a bit congested, and pulled it off, possibly with knobs on, taking the chequered flag.

Altogether more interesting than this year's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, then.

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This page contains a single entry published on December 4, 2008 7:07 AM.

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