he called Serena "Serena" who was behind Venus when he called Serena "Serena". Serena must have acknowledged him (all this is out of our sight) bc he said "Serena ... good to see you". he then went back to talking to Venus.

Is that a 30 minute drive or a 60 minute drive?

I wonder if you would find Ted Kravitz and Karun Chandhok there. Are the cars there, are the mechanics there? Can you ask them questions?

https://f1experiences.com/how-to-meet-drivers

Sounds like there are lots of people, but you could get close to the cars.

Try to steal someone's press credentials.



Bring ear protection.

Lunch between two F1 mechanics:

Huh, what?

What?

What?

Never done a pitlane walk and no idea what it is like on Thursday but do you have something better to do? I know it is very popular on the circuits that have it and unless you bought paddock passes your only chance to get that close to the pit. Make sure you are there early as I think it is limited and first come first serve.

I think this is valid from Sainz.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/61516764

I don't think we should get too excited about Mercedes being back competing for wins as I see this as historic pace they are showing at a track they know well and have done well at in the past.

oh Ferrari

entertaining GP. felt bad for Charles. Sainz really needs to pull his socks up tho

I had fun

Thursday the pitwalk and I could see all the cars from pretty close.

Friday I attended both free practices, but I made the mistake of parking on the event parking places. I had to endure 1.5h of traffic jam to get in, but the way back was much worse. I was ****ing stuck at a parking place for 3h without moving at all, while the highway was at 500m or so

You couldn't bring metal or glass bottles into the event. There was one dude who had to throw away his fancy looking alu can, but instead of doing that, he slipped it back into his packback. Unnoticed, he thought. Wrong. He was picked out, his entry ticket was invalidated and he was kicked off the terrain. Not sure if only for the day or for the entire event.

Saturday I devised a new strategy: I loaded the bike into the car and took an exit before the circuit, went up to some industry terrain with no soul in sight and plenty of parking space and parked at 2.5km from the circuit. From there I took the bike and arrived w/o problems or delays (but with a sore bottom).
I watched the Formula W race and it was boring AF. There was hardly any overtaking done, I literally saw one. It was a line of cars doing laps.

The qualification is better watched on TV. Really. You have no clue who is fast and who is not, the only thing I could see was the 1-10 classification by name, but no idea of their times, the differences. I had no idea who dropped out of Q1, other than by checking who were starting Q2. Watching qualy on TV is much more exciting imo

Sunday I left on time and could enter the terrain before a queue had built up. I watched the F3 and F2 races, which were quite amusing and lotsa overtaking and safety cars. One guy binned it in F3 in the tires right before my nose. F3 cars make the most noise of all, but still no needs for earplugs. Unfortunately, I do not follow F3 and F2, so I don't recognize the drivers by their car. For F3 that doesn't make a difference, because they don't pit and it is clear who is leading. But in F2, after some pitstops, I had no clue whatsoever about who was who and where they were in the race lol. But I enjoyed quite a few battles.

For the race it was jampacked. There was no empty seat in sight. My seat was Grandstand L (which is tier 2) and I got randed pretty high up, so I had a good view. I could see the turns 4-6, but not the start of turn 4 where Max and Carlos went off. Also I could see the end of the main straight, but primarily the chicane after the main straight. So I saw all the DRS overtakes, the VER-RUS battle, the Stroll spin etc.
I enjoyed the race and could follow it decently, although sometimes you were wondering where somebody was after they pitted. It is pretty tough to distinguish the two drivers of the same team, but you could usually know who was who and if not, some neighbour would help out. I can follow F1 from phone, but the 5G coverage was horrible over there and I couldn't fire up the app, or I could have watched the race with live comments.
I had no idea of Verstappen's DRS woes, so I didn't get why he didn't blaze past George really quickly, it was evident he was much faster.

Montmeló cannot handle 100+k attendance though. Horrible organization. It is a pain to get out. people were going out 20 minutes before the race ended, just to be able to get out in less than 3h.

it was ****ing hot. I drank 3-3.5l of water per day and still no need to pee. The water went out before it could reach my bladder

All in all it was very enjoyable. It is not something I would travel for, though. I like the comfort of my home chair, action repeats, and full overview of all the live standings. F1 is EXPENSIVE (my seat was 420€) and if you have to travel and lodge as well, it becomes a hobby that is too expensive for me.

Great overview, thanks!

I had only been to one practice session in Montreal, but you kinda confirmed what I suspected, that it's probably cool for diehards, but not really that great an experience overall unless maybe you're in the grandstands at one of the better tracks. It's also gotten so expensive that the few tracks I've looked into are just really expensive even for basic seats. Mexico City is beyond absurd prices, for example.

As for the race, it's kinda silly that Sky is making such a big deal out of Red Bull's team orders. Max was probably a second or 2 faster than Pérez at that point and no sane team would've been allowing them to race with so many laps to go. I guess, given DRS hardly worked for Max, it might've actually been interesting, but with DRS it would've been a fairly simple pass. Pérez was mad on radio, but that's obvious, he's a competitor, and if he's gonna lose a win, he wants to lose it fairly, but it was the right decision imo.

For a brief while, I actually thought Pérez could ship this. That's when he was going long on stint 1 and looked to be set up nicely for a 1-stopper. But as it became evident that this would be a mandatory multiple stop race, it looked obvious that Max would eventually take it.

Sky is making a big deal out of the team orders, because they are lolbiased against Max.

Perez should stfu really. He must be grateful that he, as a good midfield driver, can drive a wc winning car. There are various drivers better than him, getting worse results because they haven't got that package at their disposal.

I feel as bad for him as I felt for Bottas in Merc: not at all

I am sure, after the in-race emotions settle down, he will realize what a lucky sob he is.

Suck it up and wait for the next Baku-like opportunity

Thanks for the write-up. Been to a number of races but honestly, it's easier to follow watching on TV. Still cool to do once every in a while.

At some races, they do have track radio commentary you can tune to. Of course, nobody has a portable radio anymore but that helps you know what is going on.

Haha - that is sometimes the best way. Glad you had a good time and the result went your way

and we've arrived at the most overrated event on the sports calendar. only crazy wet weather can make Monaco interesting

Monaco is fine when you watch the race thinking about its tradition.

I thought this race was Thursday, Friday, Sunday?

They changed Monaco to a traditional schedule

If I am at the track in a location without a good screen then I go find a screen to follow qualification and just hear the cars in the background as I agree qualy is no fun without the times and sector gaps. Melbourne and Singapore both had massive screens with big crowds in front during qualifying. A lot of tracks have big screens opposite to the grandstands where you can easily follow what is happening. The best was custom handheld screens that don't use the mobile phone network they had for a couple of races but I guess they didn't make enough money on them as it was discontinued.

It still sucks

There's the Nurburgring 24H this weekend, #1 event in the calendar iyam.


Q3 in 45 min

Youre describing a parade

At least it's the most exciting Saturday of the season

Why do the cars have to be so big?

No hijacking this thread

No it used to always be Thursday, Sat, Sun. Changed it because of the really short turn around from Spain that teams didn't think they would be right for a Thurs start

I've read somewhere that this is mostly due to the extensive safety measures in F1 cars these days