Formula What?
We spent this past weekend at Indianapolis for the US Grand Prix. We drove most of the way there Saturday morning, to arrive at our hotel in Lafayette around lunchtime. We spent the afternoon shopping, swimming and using the sauna. There was a large group of Germans at the hotel who were also in town for the race (Schumacher fans). Sunday morning was an early start, getting to the buffet breakfast at 7am so we could get on the road for the hour’s journey to the racetrack for the big event. The Germans were only just arriving at breakfast as we were leaving, but of course they had probably already been to the track to put their towels out on their seats!Having got there and found our seats, we settled down to watch a couple of smaller races before the main event, and were chatting to a couple of guys behind us who also had travelled down from Chicagoland and were very knowledgeable on racing.
Then there was a lap of vintage cars with the Formula One drivers sitting in the back, waving to the cheering crowd, then a parade lap of all the cars, in their starting grid order. What was supposed to happen then was that they would all get back to the start grid from the parade lap, get in position and start the race. But what actually happened was only 6 cars took their positions, and all the remaining 14 pulled over into the pits and then into their garages. With all the noise of the car engines and crowd, no-one could hear the PA system so had no idea what was going on. The race actually started with only those 6 cars, and a couple of laps had gone by before the news finally filtered through to everyone in the audience as to what was going on. Apparently the cars racing were using Bridgestone tyres, whilst the cars that had pulled out were all using Michelin tyres, and Michelin had failed to fit the appropriate tyre for the track conditions. The Michelin teams had asked for special arrangements to be made to accommodate their mistake, but what they were asking was outside the rules, and would have been unfair to the Bridgestone teams, so the arrangements were not agreed to. So the Michelin teams decided to throw their toys out of the pram and just pull out altogether, but only after taking part in the parade lap, so giving the impression to everyone that all was well, thus showing absolutely no respect for their fans, some of whom had travelled much farther than us.
There was almost a riot at the beginning, with everyone booing to the cameras, and apparently throwing things onto the track, which is just plain stupid. Many people got up and left, shouting that we should all vote with our feet. But we had travelled a long way to go there, and didn’t want to leave after so short a time. So we watched a few laps, then wandered around the infield, and went to the onsite museum, which had a very interesting video about the history of the track. We came out of there in time to see the last few laps. The commentators were appealing for calm over the PA system as it came time to leave, but by then there was only a small fraction still there anyway. At least it made it easier to get out of the car parks for the journey home!
So not a good first experience of the Grand Prix for us, but I don’t think it will deter us from going again.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home