With rain sweeping the Northamptonshire area on Friday, traffic jams and mud were the order of the day for fans arriving at the Silverstone circuit.
Forecasts were for a month's worth of rain to fall over Friday and Saturday and it came bucketing down on Friday morning causing havoc not only for the F1 drivers out on track but also the fans trying to get into the circuit.
Tailbacks for over five miles ran along the main A43 as organisers tried to get everyone to park in the permanent parking and avoid the muddy fields.
However, those could not be avoided by the campers who filled the Woodlands campsite to capacity.
Silverstone's director of communications Katie Tyler admitted: "It's a nightmare.
"What's so frustrating is we'd almost got over the hangover of 2000, but it seems we're about to go through it again, certainly with today happening."
It was reminiscent of 2000 where cars trapped in mudbaths made more headlines than the racing. Since then, though, Silverstone has taken measures to correct the problem including more paved parking areas.
"For 10 years it's worked," added Tyler.
"This is the first year we've had such bad problems, which is largely down to all the fields giving out.
"We try to plan for every scenario, but at the end of the day we are surrounded by fields and the cost of tarmacing the whole site is not feasible.
"A lot of the fields are historical and ancient ground which you can't Tarmac."
She added: "We know we've got a problem, we know it's serious.
"We've the best people on the job, and we're doing all we can, with people discussing what we do tonight and tomorrow.
"One of the key decisions is getting the people waiting to get into campsites relocated, and then how we get the campers on to site tomorrow morning."
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