And when the 5 red lights go out... it will be the start of the 2007 British G... but wait Massa's waving his hand !!! He can't get his car started, so the rest of the field will do another formation lap while Massa is wheeled to the pit lane and start from there... if he can start that is ! (and for me that's another lap to see Lewis Hamilton play with his McLaren MP4-22)That was part of the excitement at Silverstone on 7th & 8th July this year. Right from the start till the end, it was one of the greatest races to watch and I was more than happy to be right there watching all the action... And although I'd been given a deadline to post this (which i missed by a day) , Formula 1 is one of my favourite subjects so its going to be a pleasure recounting the incidents at the race !
We were 10 of us that included 3 Engicos - Urvashi, Pankaj & myself, hired two cars and set out early on Saturday for the qualifying. Although, we were not racing each other I feel extremely proud to say our car reached the circuit first with me navigating and a little help of the SatNav. (Yuri please do not allow Urvashi to modify this blog - she doesn't like to admit losing u know;-)).
Anyway, we arrived just as planned for the 3rd practice session. For those who don't follow the sport - There are normally 3 practice sessions: 2 on Friday & 1 on Saturday before the Qualifying session. They don't show the practice on TV, but there's a live timing feed on www.formula1.com (and that's why I'm less productive in office on a race weekend Friday)
So when we arrived at the circuit some of the drivers were doing their practice laps and if you're listening to the sounds of those cars for the first time, you'd go deaf !! Most of my friends were amazed like I was last year. Listen to this video on max volume if u can...
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| F1 Videoz |
Having gone around the F1 'mela' and seen and touched some of the real cars on display including the "Mercedes McLaren SLR 722 Edition" (that's my dream car btw!!!) we decided to find place and park ourselves for the Qual. session. This year I'd specifically bought tickets for a part of the circuit that has a series of turns (Luffield) , but although the entry to the place is booked there are no seats and you need to be early to grab a place. (This is a tip for anyone planning to go to Silverstone in the future on a Bronze ticket). So we got to watch the Porsche super cup race as well. Then there was a helicopter display and some of the stunts they pulled off were amazing !! I'm not going to describe that in detail though and stick to the track on the ground and things that move on it mostly cars and exceptionally beautiful pit babes.The 1st session of qualifying saw 2 of the British drivers: Jenson Button & Anthony Davidson eliminated into the last slot. But what was fun was to see A. Davidson lose control and spin out into the sand and dust right in front of us.
One of us managed to capture it on video as well. These things are not good if you're inside the car, but its sometimes spectacular to watch and something we were all waiting to see. The rest of the session went quite normal with more or less expected results till the very end of the session. Ahh... this is my favourite part !One thing I forgot to mention is, if you're sitting there in front of the track u'll just see cars fly past you with tremendous speeds and sounds without knowing wat's happening on the rest of the track till they fly past you again. There's a big screen TV directly in front, but it still cannot show all 22 cars at the same time, not unless you have a radio set (or mobile with a radio) and tuned into the local channel. Then its fun !!
Okay, so we are in the final few minutes of Qualifying and so far Alonso had set the fastest lap. Then came Kimi and man, he fast very very fast. He did the series of turns, and on the final bend which is just before the start/finish line, goes just a bit wide. I remember seeing that and still gets a pole position. When that happened, it was a huge cheer from the Ferrari fans including my friends who were literally on top of me. And I could do nothing... but my friend Lewis Hamilton was having his last final attempt having just quickly changed a set if tyres. The flag was already out, which meant since he was already on his lap, he could complete it and that would be the last. The commentary said he was quicker than Kimi in the first two sectors, the last one was where we were seated (standing rather with the excitement), saw his car appear, from the right, slow down for the sharp left hander, than come straight towards us, then a sharp right hander directly in front less than 50 mtrs from us and the final exit corner (where Kimi had put a couple of inches of his car on the grass) and pole was his to take.... and that's the moment when I got to hit my friends back, which I took extreme joy in doing !!!
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| F1 - British GP 2007 |
to be contd....
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