Motor racing-Silverstone Pop-Up Hotel offers 'immersive' F1 with pool and palm trees

By Alan Baldwin

LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - A Pop-Up Hotel famed for catering for celebrities and rock stars at the Glastonbury Festival is making its British Grand Prix offering 'fully immersive' by adding a trackside swimming pool and palm trees to the experience.

What ‌might sound like an April Fool's joke, or bold gamble on English weather that in July can range from heatwave to a ‌sudden opening of the heavens, promises to combine the thrills of motorsport with the pampered luxury of a holistic weekend retreat.

Positioned close to the paddock, the temporary hotel -- which debuted ​last year -- is a long way from the crowded campsites, muddy carparks, drenched fans and fast food queues of yesteryear.

The pool, complete with swim-up bar, will be part of a concept that includes fine dining and a cocooned enclave to escape the crowds.

A photographic fantasy render on an upbeat press release shows guests in the pool or on sun loungers with palm trees providing shade under a blue sky dappled with clouds.

MARK OF GLAMOUR TO CATER FOR A ‌NEW AUDIENCE

Nigel Mansell, the 1992 world champion and ⁠fan favourite, will be staying on site all weekend.

"The pool is a signal of glamour, even if it's not particularly used," Mark Sorrill, founder of the Pop-Up Hotel, told Reuters on Tuesday in an admission that the reality might ⁠not live up to the render.

"It's more about the fact that we are diversifying the experience... it's kind of a USP for us. We've had it at Glastonbury, we've probably done five pools at Glastonbury over the years."

Hollywood A-lister Margot Robbie has hosted a pool party at the world's largest greenfield music festival while ​Brad ​Pitt, star of the F1 Movie, was a guest at Silverstone and McLaren's current ​world champion Lando Norris swung by.

With 203 covers in ‌the glass-fronted trackside restaurant, there is plenty of shelter if the weather goes through all four seasons in an afternoon. The hotel suites are luxury tents or converted shipping containers.

The Netflix docu-series 'Drive to Survive', as well as F1 Movie, have driven a surge in the sport's popularity drawn by driver personalities, brands and fashion as much as anything on track.

Sorrill said the new audiences, many of them female, were also looking for different end-to-end experiences. His hotel concept will also feature at Monaco this year and could expand to Monza and other F1 races in future.

He cited the example of ‌one Silverstone guest last year who thanked him for allowing his family to follow ​their different interests while attending together.

"His wife was still in bed in the Airstream ​and he was taking a latte back to her, his sons ​were at the paddock waiting to get signatures from the drivers and he was networking, hobnobbing with me trackside," ‌said Sorrill.

"He went to the stands on Sunday and sat ​there in the rain and his wife ​said 'I'm staying with the girls and drinking rose and watching on the telly in the hotel'."

Sorrill suggested Silverstone, host of the first championship grand prix in 1950 and with the biggest attendance of all last year with 500,000 people over the weekend, had room for ​all tastes.

"You want the guys who are there ‌with their mates in their nylon tent down the road with a slab of beer... that is the core of racing," ​he said.

"But that doesn't mean it can't coexist with somebody who's an influencer who maybe doesn't even watch the race but ​just wants to be seen there."

(Reporting by Alan BaldwinEditing by Christian Radnedge)