And it’s Go, Go, GO!

If you didn’t read the title of this post in the voice of Murray Walker, you may as well stop reading now.

But, for those who are getting that tingly feeling just from the sound of Formula 1, you’ll hopefully enjoy this post. My first ever Formula 1 race, and I can only hope that I do it justice on my blog. It’s almost certainly going to spread out over 4 posts, so check back often!

It began in worrisome circumstances; a slight mix-up with regards to the flight had me worried that I wouldn’t make it to the airport on time, although I suspect that my travelling companion was simply confusing the departures and arrivals board. It’s not a risk you can take with Tiger Airways though – Australi’s low cost, low service airline.

Still, we made it to Melbourne as planned on Wednesday night, took the tram all the way South to St Kilda, passing a much-changed Albert Park since my last visit, before checking in to Base hostel for a short nights kip, and a very brief chat with a traveller from Seattle who had the nerve to ask if Formula 1 was anything like Nascar. We didn’t talk to him so much after that.

An early, but not so bright start on the Thursday morning then, having double checked I had my ticket about four hundred times. As GP Advantage members we got early access on an unexpectedly cloudy Melbourne morning, and free breakfast ahead of our pit walk where I got my first sight of F1 cars. Delightfully, McLaren were just doing a practice pit stop as we passed, which was both very cool to watch, but also had the great humour of one of the mechanics finishing fitting the tyre to realise that one of the fans had nicked his mask having left it a little too close to where we could get to.

Beyond the F1 pitlane was the brand new V8 pitlane, home of the equally loud roadcars who compete across the world. Melbourne should have been something of a weekend off for them, what with the points not counting in the final Championship, but it was anything but. Check out the video at the end of this post to see just how easy they were taking it.

Having seemingly beaten the crowds through the pitlane, and across the pit buildings, we wandered back through Albert Park in the general direction of our stand, passing countless examples of motorsport ingenuity – cars from the early 1900′s to the very recent were on display across the park, each with it’s own unique draw.

The first on track action were display laps from the leading V8 supercars, which were soon followed by a historic demonstration of cars throughout the years, which included our absolute favourite – the winner of the very first Grand Prix in 1906.

All I know about it is that it’s from a French company by the name of Durracq. To give you some idea of the difficulty of driving this, the footbrake doesn’t work, so all braking must be done with the handbrake – the very long lever next to the gearstick. It doesn’t handle well, there is no engine cover, no seatbelt, and no windows. And how terrifying can it be? Well, excellently, it has a top speed of 105mph. The impressive line-up also featured racing Maseratis, Bentleys, Bugattis, Alfas, Jaguars, Lotus’, Renaults and even an Austin Healey. As the weather worsened, and I was forced to buy a poncho, the handling on these cars showed their lack of grip, and seeing one of them spin round on a corner almost became standard.

There was also my favourite challenge – the ultimate speed comparision. A top-line Mercedes was set off from the start line, followed 25 seconds later by a V8 supercar, the another 25 seconds later, the 2008 McLaren Formula 1 car took after them. With our stand perfectly positioned, we saw the inevitable passes just in front of us.

As an aside here, I need to share that photos at a race circuit are really difficult! My eyes are far better at factoring out the fences than my camera, and also far better at focusing. Of the 1400 photos or so that I took on the weekend, 300 of them are either focused on the fence (leaving the car behind as nothing more than a large blur), focused on nothing, or I was too slow, leaving a photo of nothing more than a wing or empty track. Then, there’s the added difficulty of the occasional vertical poles in the fence, and you can see why so many photos came out terribly. I’m quite pleased with those that are left though!

This is far from all that went on on Day 1, but I don’t want to drag this out too long. Also on display were the Porsche Carrera Cup cars, more V8 supercars, a celebrity Lexus challenge, the Formula 5000 Tasman Cup and a Red Bull Race Off, but I’m sure I’ll come to them eventually.

And finally, I leave you as promised, with the most impressive crash of the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, in a V8 race with absolutely no bearing on their Championship, they just couldn’t get round the corner quick enough! Incredibly, this didn’t bring a red flag – a couple of laps in the safety car and they had the track cleared.