Planes, Germans and Automobiles - a day at the Grand Prix

Some of us clearly have more to do than teachers (see previous entry). Hence why it's taken nearly a month for me to blog about this. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Don't tell Stacey I said that though. It'll be our little secret.

Anyway - the Grand Prix. My first one, although I've been an avid fan for 15 years much to Stacey's disappointment.  She hates it, and so this was my 'treat'.

For the princely sum of $99 (about £65 in Northern Hemisphere money) you get general admission. Which means you can sit/stand anywhere that a) isn't in a grandstand and b) doesn't have such a good view of the track as a grandstand. However, you can get up good and close to the track and you've got the freedom to walk around the circuit as much as you want. I'd been recommended a good hill at turn 2 where you could see a big screen and get close to the track so that's where I based myself for most of the day. Fans of maps get a load of this:

I arrived after a brisk 30 minute walk from our house at about 11.30am. Albert Park is a park (obviously) with a road running round it that is closed and turned into the race track for the weekend.

Turn 2 is a good spot for those of us too cheap to pay the $299 for a proper seat and so it gets busy early - the race started at 5pm. It only seemed fair that if you want to sit at a popular spot then you should get there early and sit it out whilst waiting for the race. A couple of Germans who turned up early afternoon took the alternative "sun lounger" approach by spreading out their towel on the ground and then leaving. They were most upset when they came back 4 hours later to find their towel had been neatly folded to about A4 size by all the other people who arrived after!

The day starts with support races - we had the Porsche Supercup first with the only really exciting action of the day at my turn as this guy managed to spin and only just managed to avoid collecting the rest of the field as they streamed by. Made me grateful early on for the concrete bollards and steel fences that stopped debris coming our way.

Next up are the V8 supercars - one of my favourites as they tend to race pretty closely with one another as they're all evenly matched.

The drivers parade provided another Kodak moment. Apparently the guy waving in this photo didn't actually know Lewis Hamilton - he was coincidentally waving at his mate on the other side of the track.I'd met a few people from work who shared my blanket and bought me beers during the day so I had no need to wave.

Then we had a fly over from a 747 (Qantas sponsor the event). From the number of people taking photos in this shot you'd think Australians had never seen a real airplane before. Although it was an incredibly slow fly over - not sure how it didn't just fall out of the air! You'll also notice that the grey start to the day cleared and it got pretty hot sitting in the sun all afternoon.




This is a shot from the start of the race, that I decided to share with everyone else in my section. F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport so it's not a surprise that the cars are fast - far too fast for me to be able to get a decent photo as they zoomed by at 140mph. However, I hadn't really appreciated how loud they were going to be. Stacey could hear the racing in the flat some 3 miles away from the circuit, and even wearing a set of noise cancelling headphones 1 1/2 hours of Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeomph was still a lot for the ears to take. Although I was better prepared than two Brazilian guys who were standing next to me who made do with putting their fingers in their ears every time a car passed.

To get a feel for the noise and speed I've uploaded a short video of some cars passing - to get the full effect please turn the volume on your speakers to maximum and even then it's likely to be much quieter than the real thing.

Overall a fantastic day and well worth the entry money. The race itself wasn't the most exciting, but as long as you can see a screen and listen to the commentary you can get some sort of idea what is going on. But mostly, because the beer was very reasonably priced as well....