Monday, June 18, 2007

Formula 1 USGP Day 4 (Race Day)

Oh dear god yesterday was an early, early day. After being out for qualies, and seeing the little note at the bottom of our parking tag that said gates open at 7, and they recommend arriving no later than 8, we figured it might be a good idea to get up early, grab some coffee, and try to get to the track around sunrise. Amazingly enough, we did just that. We were sitting out on the mound running along the turn 8-9-10 complex by around 7:20am.

The race started at 1:00pm.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds, though, because they have several support races throughout the day to pass the time and help keep the fans pumped up. Here's a photo (from the Porsche series race) of two of the cars getting into each other.




By lunchtime it was well over 90 degrees F. Track temp was at an unheard-of 60C. Yeah it was a wee spot warm out there!



Finally!!! The lights went out and the race was on! Typical of many F1 races, the race was won from the front row. The real joy in an F1 race for a true fan is not really so much who wins the race, but the experience of the entire weekend, the lead-up to the race, the qualifications, the testing, the teams and aero configurations of the cars. The race itself is, in some ways, anticlimactic. There was a hell of a battle for first, though, and what made it even more interesting was that the battle was between teammates--Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, both from team Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes. Hamilton ended up on top in the end, taking his second win in eight days (having previously won the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal).

Here are some more sights from race-day at this awesome spectacle.








On the victory lap...

1 comment:

stephen seward said...

very cool stuff, I really want to get into racing when I find the time.