The fourth element is the Silverstone Classic Auctions. This requires a Sale Auction Catalogue for £10 and your Autosport ticket to get in. When I say get in, it gets you past the three foot high white picket fence. 

You don’t need to pay the extra tenner, you can see everything that is going on in the auction from behind the fence. Getting good pictures of the cars is easy as you can walk all the way round the fence. 

We went a little mad over Christmas in the PistonClick household, resulting in a 17-55mm Nikon f2.8 and a load of other camera related goodies that I tested out at the show. Verdict, the 17-55mm is a beast of a lens, the compressed jpeg images I use here don’t do it justice.

As we were not in the market for a £150000 Ex-works 1966 Ford Cortina Lotus at this time, we skipped the auctions. Don’t get me wrong a 1966 Ford Cortina Lotus would look mint in the parking lot of PistonClick HQ, just not today. 

The three parts of the show are The Autosport Show, Engineering Show and Performance Car Show. These shows run for four days and are only open to the motorsports trade and media Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday are for Joe public.

I will say upfront that I'm not a fan of car shows as a photographer. They are generally packed, indoors with odd lighting and difficult to photograph well. 

I've never been one to swerve a challenge so accompanied by my trusty side-kick who was also using the 17-55mm f2.8 we went on Saturday. 

It would have been easy to do the media day what with two of my car clubs having stands and my contacts in the motorsport world, but that is not what his site is about. It's all about getting interesting images shooting from public areas.

Super Saturday is traditionally the day all of the motor racing stars turn up. Also the big reveals and new livery presentations happen, hence Super Saturday. One of the headline events was the World Rally Championship (WRC) reveals of the new 2019 cars.

The plan was to pap the WRC teams at the main stage and then as they walked up to the reveal. Unfortunately I got distracted by a stunning looking Porker. 

However, my side kick had it covered. That’s why you need a team at large events like this especially if you have a weak link in the chain. When I got to the WRC reveal I was at the back with little chance of capturing the whole event. Not to worry, a long lens and my side-kick shooting through the massive crowd got us something useable. 

Lets hope Kris Meeke, the Northern Irish driver for the Gazoo WRC Team can keep the Toyota shiny side up and the oily bits down in 2019.

On show were the Citroën Total, M-Sport Ford, Hyundai Shell Mobis and the Toyota Gazoo. After a while the crowds had dispersed. I then had time to check out these amazing cars that can out accelerate a full on F1 car. 

The next time you will see these cars is in two weeks at Monte-Carlo for the first WRC Rally of the year.

So what was in my camera bag for this show? Lens wise I took along a 10-20mm Sigma which worked well at the Motorcycle Show. You can get stupid close and still get all of the vehicle in the frame using this lens.

A 17-55mm f2.8 and 80-200mm f2.8 Nikon attached to a Nikon D7200 completed the setup. In the end I didn’t use the 10-20mm as the 17-55mm did everything I needed and had the added luxury of a wide aperture, allowing in loads of light, no flash required.

My settings were full manual with spot metering for some of the shots when the light became challenging. However, Auto White Balance, Aperture Priority, ISO at 600 - 800 will work fine if you don’t want to be messing around too much. 

Just watch your shutter speed, it can drop very low on Aperture Priority resulting in a blurry image due to camera shake. If you have a lens with vibration reduction make sure its turned on. I don’t so didn’t have that luxury.

The show its self has representation from just about every motorsport you can think of. F1 to Karts, Drag Racing to Classic you will find it all at the show. 

However, the surprise for me was the Le Mans Esports Series, a live console racing game using Forza Motorsport 7. The qualifying race at the show was one of 6 held around the world. The series cumulates in the final to be at held at the Le Mans 24 Hour. For this event there was a $10000 prize fund, if that doesn't inspire you to break out the X-Box and get practicing the final has $160000 up for grabs, amazing. 

The Performance Car Show is where you will find the Club stands and the custom guys. 

Liberty Walk the Japanese tuning house, famous for putting massive fenders on high end cars had an equally massive and impressive stand, with some stunning cars and wheels on show.

Yianni Charalambous and his crew form the TV show Yianni Supercar Customiser was also there showing off their latest wraps.

Over in the Club area the two Nissan GTR Club stands had some bonkers cars on show. The 700hp R35 GTR powered Juke R from Severn Valley Motorsport has to be one of the best sleeper cars ever. The perfect car if you need to get down the shops really, really quickly and scare a few fast BMW and Audis on the way.

If you want to get round the track really, really quickly this  R35 Nismo GT1 GT-R race car will probably be more to your liking. These 5520cc V8s monsters produced 600 BHP and 650 Nm of torque just through its rear wheels. With a carbon body kit, plastic windows and carbon brakes they competed in the 2010 FIA GT1 Championships.

The Live Action Arena is run throughout the day bringing motorsport indoors. It's the standard fair of chat, celebrity drivers, stunts and light shows. It’s a good show and entertaining, but for the photographer its not that great. 

It's dark with upright posts and fencing in the way. My advise, just enjoy the spectacle it and forget about getting any show stopping pictures. Unless you are a Ninja with a camera…..

Last but not least were the British Touring Cars. The Ford Focus of the Kent based Motorbase Performance team stood out with its bright yellow livery. Ollie Jackson, in his eighth year in BTCC, will be driving this car for Motorbase, having swapped over for the 2019 season from the AmD team. 

The historic BTCC cars were also on display. This 1989 Labatt’s Sierra Cosworth RS500 was driven by the 1992 BTCC Champion Tim Harvey in the 1989 championship. This 560bhp monster is not a garage queen having taken part in the Silverstone Classic recently. It was up for sale earlier this year with a guide price of £180000 - £220000, anyone need a kidney? 

The stars of the show for me was the F1 display. These cars really have presence, if you have never been up close to one you should. They are a lot bigger than you would imagine and the detail on them is extraordinary as you would expect from vehicles at the pinnacle of motorsport.

Its not often you get to see all of the teams in one place unless you are one of the lucky few with a F1 grid pass. As that is not going to happen anytime soon I spent some time checking out these amazing cars. 

That concludes our visit to the Autosport International Show 2019. It has something for every motorsport fan, except motorbikes. From virtual reality to F1, the latest WRC and BTCC as well as GT and Classic race cars. 

Getting some decent shots wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. The live action arena helped to thin out the crowds. With over a 1000 people inside the arena and the same number queuing to get in helped in getting an unobstructed shot, so time it right and you will get the image you are after.

I enjoyed my visit, especially catching up with friends I haven't seen for a while. I hope you have enjoyed this article, if you have any observations or would like to help out on a feature drop us an email.

I would like to thank RP Watkinson Photography not only for helping out, but his guidance and his uncanny ability of spotting obscure race car drivers at 400 paces.