Day 4: Friday June 6
Overnight rain lingered, and I misjudged the weather this morning, wearing shorts, expecting clearing and sunny but it remained overcast and cool all day.
Directly across the street from my hotel front door is a 1-square block city park. Seems like the young folks who inhabit the park and the police have an unspoken agreement: The kids stay within the park, and the police, while maintaining a visible presence, don’t enter the park. And there’s lots of activity within the park.
French words I’ve learned:
Sortie – exit
Petard - joint
The racetrack itself, the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, is fully located inside a Provincial park on onto the man-made island Île Notre-Dame in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. Private vehicle access is prohibited all this weekend. The Metro station is 2 blocks from my hotel, then a 15 minute metro ride to get onto the island. Various entrances into the racetrack and seating areas are a good mile walk from the metro, so the entire commute takes an hour or so. Still, it seems to be pretty efficient.
http://www.static.everyday.com/editorial/DE-DE/images/F/F1_big_Montreal.gif
http://explorer.altopix.com/map/je3ct5/Montreal_Gilles_Villeneuve_Circuit.htm
http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/vill_bio.htm
Security is very visible but low-key – lots of sidearm-carrying police, either federal, provincial or local. A great number are women. They are carefully checking tickets at strategic checkpoints and at some places allowing only ticket holders into the specific areas for their seats. There’s also event security staff, “information persons”, etc.
The weekend of auto racing will run a total of 4 different classes of cars at different times, similar to bike race events. Each class has several sessions spread out over multiple days: Some practice time, then qualifying, followed by their race. Makes for lots of viewing opportunity.
I’m impressed by the meticulous cleaning of marbles (rolled-up bits of tire rubber) from the track surface between each session for different classes of cars. There are track workers with brooms, leaf blowers, and powered street cleaners mounted at the front of tractors.
The damp track in the morning kept all drivers careful and cars were visibly running slowly so the actual action was subdued. Despite that, when the F1 cars took the course for their first practice session Friday morning, the crowd went wild. Most of the F1 cars ran, some for only a couple of laps, some had rain tires mounted. Looked great, sounded cool, but they just weren’t running very hard.
Seating is reserved grandstand. Here’s the view of the racetrack from my seat. In this picture, to the left is the race course and to the right is the exit from the pits.
I’m at the Senna corner which is a severe S turn at the end of the start/finish straightaway, at the opposite end of the course from the hairpin. In other words, I’m at the first turn of the race looking back at the start/finish line. I can also look up the pit lane from the pit exit.
With less than spectacular action on the track there’s time to browse the venue. Pretty much the entire island is a Provincial park, site of the 1967 World’s Fair, with a few buildings remaining from then: The Casino, and the crystal sphere (my name, not their’s) which supposedly was the USA exhibit. Circumnavigating the outside of the racecourse on foot takes an hour. Inside the park are only approved name-brand vendors but each has at least several locations. Lots of beer vendors and beer drinkers.
Action during this afternoon F1 practice session was much more aggressive than this morning’s. Every car ran and most ran hard. Of course, being here live is way different from watching on TV at home. The visual element is a big part of it – for example, you can really see just how late these cars brake for corners and how quickly they decelerate into turns – but the sound is a huge sensory experience. The engine sound from these cars is loud, and no amount of TV volume does it justice. The BMW Sauber cars’ engines have a distinctly different sound under compression, a sort of low toned and growly sound (almost like a big ‘ole Detroit pushrod engine!), but as soon as the throttle opens they pick up that lovely F1 wail. After paying attention to these differences during the practice and qualifying sessions, I could identify the Saubers by sound during the race even when they were running in a group of cars.
Also, the scent of the F1 cars exhaust is sweet and intoxicating. Just another sense that does not get exercised while watching from home.
Alonso spins out and stalls his car in the grass right in front of us, and gets a huge cheer.
One of the advantages of my Grand Prix Tours package http://www.gptours.com/ is the evening celebrity sessions. Thursday evening was light refreshment and snacks followed by a talk with Peter Windsor (TV commentator & journalist) and Mark Webber (Red Bull driver). This is an example of the benefits of buying one of these tour packages - maybe I could have arranged my own race tickets and accommodations, but there's no way I could have gotten into last night's Q & A session.
Overnight rain lingered, and I misjudged the weather this morning, wearing shorts, expecting clearing and sunny but it remained overcast and cool all day.
Directly across the street from my hotel front door is a 1-square block city park. Seems like the young folks who inhabit the park and the police have an unspoken agreement: The kids stay within the park, and the police, while maintaining a visible presence, don’t enter the park. And there’s lots of activity within the park.
French words I’ve learned:
Sortie – exit
Petard - joint
The racetrack itself, the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, is fully located inside a Provincial park on onto the man-made island Île Notre-Dame in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. Private vehicle access is prohibited all this weekend. The Metro station is 2 blocks from my hotel, then a 15 minute metro ride to get onto the island. Various entrances into the racetrack and seating areas are a good mile walk from the metro, so the entire commute takes an hour or so. Still, it seems to be pretty efficient.
http://www.static.everyday.com/editorial/DE-DE/images/F/F1_big_Montreal.gif
http://explorer.altopix.com/map/je3ct5/Montreal_Gilles_Villeneuve_Circuit.htm
http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/vill_bio.htm
Security is very visible but low-key – lots of sidearm-carrying police, either federal, provincial or local. A great number are women. They are carefully checking tickets at strategic checkpoints and at some places allowing only ticket holders into the specific areas for their seats. There’s also event security staff, “information persons”, etc.
The weekend of auto racing will run a total of 4 different classes of cars at different times, similar to bike race events. Each class has several sessions spread out over multiple days: Some practice time, then qualifying, followed by their race. Makes for lots of viewing opportunity.
I’m impressed by the meticulous cleaning of marbles (rolled-up bits of tire rubber) from the track surface between each session for different classes of cars. There are track workers with brooms, leaf blowers, and powered street cleaners mounted at the front of tractors.
The damp track in the morning kept all drivers careful and cars were visibly running slowly so the actual action was subdued. Despite that, when the F1 cars took the course for their first practice session Friday morning, the crowd went wild. Most of the F1 cars ran, some for only a couple of laps, some had rain tires mounted. Looked great, sounded cool, but they just weren’t running very hard.
Seating is reserved grandstand. Here’s the view of the racetrack from my seat. In this picture, to the left is the race course and to the right is the exit from the pits.
I’m at the Senna corner which is a severe S turn at the end of the start/finish straightaway, at the opposite end of the course from the hairpin. In other words, I’m at the first turn of the race looking back at the start/finish line. I can also look up the pit lane from the pit exit.
With less than spectacular action on the track there’s time to browse the venue. Pretty much the entire island is a Provincial park, site of the 1967 World’s Fair, with a few buildings remaining from then: The Casino, and the crystal sphere (my name, not their’s) which supposedly was the USA exhibit. Circumnavigating the outside of the racecourse on foot takes an hour. Inside the park are only approved name-brand vendors but each has at least several locations. Lots of beer vendors and beer drinkers.
Action during this afternoon F1 practice session was much more aggressive than this morning’s. Every car ran and most ran hard. Of course, being here live is way different from watching on TV at home. The visual element is a big part of it – for example, you can really see just how late these cars brake for corners and how quickly they decelerate into turns – but the sound is a huge sensory experience. The engine sound from these cars is loud, and no amount of TV volume does it justice. The BMW Sauber cars’ engines have a distinctly different sound under compression, a sort of low toned and growly sound (almost like a big ‘ole Detroit pushrod engine!), but as soon as the throttle opens they pick up that lovely F1 wail. After paying attention to these differences during the practice and qualifying sessions, I could identify the Saubers by sound during the race even when they were running in a group of cars.
Also, the scent of the F1 cars exhaust is sweet and intoxicating. Just another sense that does not get exercised while watching from home.
Alonso spins out and stalls his car in the grass right in front of us, and gets a huge cheer.
One of the advantages of my Grand Prix Tours package http://www.gptours.com/ is the evening celebrity sessions. Thursday evening was light refreshment and snacks followed by a talk with Peter Windsor (TV commentator & journalist) and Mark Webber (Red Bull driver). This is an example of the benefits of buying one of these tour packages - maybe I could have arranged my own race tickets and accommodations, but there's no way I could have gotten into last night's Q & A session.
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