The news of the death of Minardi's sporting director John Walton over the British Grand Prix weekend came as a shock for most of the Formula One community, and more so for Ann Bradshaw, a close friend of the Irishman. In this week's column, Ann plays tribute to Minardi's John Boy

I went to Silverstone on Sunday but for the first time in my life I didn't want to go into the paddock. For me, the thought of going there and not coming across John Walton was too difficult to contemplate. John Walton, or John Boy as he was known, died on Friday night and, while motorsport lost a special person, I lost a friend and one of my favourite people in the world.

When John Boy was taken from us he was Sporting Director of Minardi, but over the years he had been with several teams and so most of us at one time or another had worked alongside him. My years as a colleague were at Arrows and we went through thick and thin there together in the late nineties. However, my favourite memory was of a trick John Boy would play on girls. We had to wear fireproof overalls if we were to be in the garage during the race, so our measurements were needed to have these snug outfits made.

I don't know a girl who is happy to divulge her measurements to her best friend, let alone a man. However, it had to be done and so I filled in the form. When the overalls came back I put them on and was alarmed to realise I had put on weight. The scales, however, told me differently and it was only when I discussed this with John Boy's long time partner, Louise Goodman, that I realised he loved doctoring these measurements as he hated girls in baggy clothes in his garage!

As I said his partner was Louise, who is the pitlane reporter for the ITV F1 coverage and also someone who I consider as special and a good mate. They had been together a long time and had always been one of the happiest couples I knew. John was adored by all the girls in the paddock, and Louise always viewed this with amusement. In fact when we had our girly talks to decide who was the best looking man in the paddock she was very put out if John Boy was not at the top of our lists. Needless to say she was very seldom put out, especially if our mutual friend Lynden Swainston and myself were compiling our lists.

John Boy had a soft Irish accent. I never heard him shout but if he was cross with anyone the tone would change subtlety and they would know. It took a lot to make John Boy mad and his humour, charm and commitment would always make those working for and with him want to go that extra mile to do a good job.

I can't begin to imagine how Louise felt last weekend. I understand she was due to watch the race and hope the tribute to John Boy on the Minardi cars gave her some comfort. Paul Stoddart had changed the livery of his two cars overnight and they carried the simple words John Boy with hearts replacing each 'o'. The team held a minute's silence in front of the garage on Sunday morning and the other drivers all joined them. I understand other teams had helped the Minardi boys get this livery change done in time. I always find it sad when it takes a tragedy to get people working together, but this also says a lot about how John Boy was viewed in the paddock.

John Boy was young, in his late forties, he had lived life to the full but his death was too soon. He leaves children and grand children. I worked with his son Tony at TWR and have met the others over the years. Despite them being spread between England and Ireland they were a big happy family. They will all be mourning and I know their closeness will help them get through this. Louise has many happy memories and one of their shared passions was for motorbikes. John Boy's Harley-Davidson was one of his pride and joys and I just hope he has found the great highway in the sky to ride it on.

It was difficult to concentrate on what was happening on the track at the weekend when this had just happened. But life went on and while the Minardi team were struggling to come to terms with their loss, the cars were rushing round the Silverstone track. Just how mad our sport is was demonstrated when in the first half of qualifying we saw cars crawling round to record the slowest rather than the fastest times.

Some meteorological whiz kids had decided it was going to rain before the second qualifying runs were over, so it would be best to go at the beginning rather than the end. They got it wrong and the whole session was dry. No surprise there to find the English weather unpredictable. However, the surprise was Kimi Raikkonen on pole. McLaren had got their act together and produced a car that was capable of matching the Ferrari pace.

The home fans were a little disappointed that their man Jenson was third, but at least Michael was down the grid a bit in fourth. The race was sort of okay but, despite Kimi giving the fans some hope, it was soon obvious Michael and the Ferrari boys had it all again, the car, the engine, the strategy and, of course, the driver.

Poor old Jarno Trulli. He was, I am sure, hoping to make amends for his lapse in concentration at the end of Magny-Cours with a good result. However, this was not to be as, through what we were told may have been caused by a rear suspension failure, he was in the headlines again. The car went out of control and, after hitting a tyre barrier at about 150mph, went sideways into the gravel trap and then did something I have not seen since Torvill and Dean were winning gold medals for ice skating, spiralled out of control flipping and turning and ended up with all four corners knocked off. I am worried he could be back on the driver market soon.

On the subject of the driver market, Ralf has now come clean about Toyota, so putting to rest the worst kept secret of the year, Mark Webber in an interview on ITV said he could only stay with Jaguar if they gave him a car that he could win in. He thus more of less confirmed another badly kept secret that he is leaving the team. To me, this movement and what I am sure will be lots more to come, is only playing into the hands of Ferrari. My ex-boss, Sir Frank Williams, always believed in stability and this is just what the Italian team have for 2005, while their main opposition will be bedding in new boys.

My Grand Prix was spent in a hospitality unit at Becketts looking after a group of guests for Grand Prix sponsor, Fosters. There were over 100 publicans and their bar staff who had won the trip for being able to serve the best pint of the amber nectar using a new 'hit' system, which makes sure the pint has a nice head on it. These people were from 12 establishments who were the winners out of the 60,000 that sell Fosters in the UK. I never realised this was such a technical exercise, but it is and I even watched 12 videos, one from each establishment, showing how it was done during a dinner that was held for the prize-winners on Saturday night.

They were a very jolly group of people, although considering they were publicans some of them had a very small capacity of how much they could drink before they became a bit 'silly'. I suppose if you run a pub or a bar after a heavy Saturday night you are allowed to sleep in on a Sunday. Not so our guests so I did have a bit of sympathy for those who found the 08.45 departure time difficult. Some circumnavigated this by not going to bed at all, while others needed several alarm calls and a good deal of banging on doors before appearing looking bleary eyed.

I am delighted to say once they all arrived they loved the day. For me this was the first time for over 30 years I had been in a public area to watch the race. The guests had grandstand tickets and as there were some left over I was given one. I watched this with Sally Blower, who I was working with looking after the Fosters guests. Sally has also been involved in motorsport on the inside. She had worked for a company called Chrysalis and in her Silverstone days had been a member of the team putting on the ITV coverage of F1.

Sally is a very experienced TV backroom girl without whom we would never have the pictures we see on the screen, so she was having a new experience as well. We came away from the event believing Silverstone had put on a great event and that motorsport was entertainment, but I think if either of us would truthfully answer the question as to whether we would go and buy ourselves tickets and go as punters we would be hard pushed to say yes. I think it is just too difficult to have spent years rushing round and being busy and then just sitting down and watching a race.

I feel I should also mention here the half a million people who were able to watch F1 cars live for free on the Tuesday before the event. The F1 cars drove round the streets of London with the likes of Juan Pablo Montoya and David Coulthard sharing the attention with former drivers such as Nigel Mansell and Martin Brundle. It seems it was amazing and if the TV pictures are anything to go by the crowds loved it. It came as no surprise to see the papers hyping this up and suggesting there would eventually be a Monaco style event through the streets of London.

While it would be great to see this I don't quite see it happening. I am not sure too many of the retailers there would fancy a week of total chaos with the subsequent lost takings. On top of this, the red tape needed to allow the streets to be shut would be horrendous. I worked on the Birmingham Super Prix that was held in the mid eighties and know how difficult it was to get this off the ground, despite the fact it was not through the centre of the city.

I also worked at the RAC MSA in the early eighties and know how difficult it was each year to close one road off in Hyde Park for the start of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. Nice thought, we got F1 to the masses rather than the other way round, but now let's make sure Silverstone remains the home of British Motor Sport.

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with BMW among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.

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