Quote:
Originally Posted by julianh72
Add me to that group!
I've been to a few F1 races, but an absolute highlight for me was the 1989 Silverstone Grand Prix, where I managed to spend some time in the Benetton pits (as in INSIDE the pit garage - "Look, but don't touch anything!") during Saturday practice and qualifying, thanks to a cousin who was a mad-keen club motor-sport participant, and had some good connections with some of the British F1 teams.
And then in 2012, I was lucky enough to score a double-pass to the Qantas hospitality suite in Melbourne, which is built on top of the pit garages. I got some fabulous photographs leaning out the window (glass of champagne in hand), looking straight down on the mechanics working on the Red Bulls, Ferraris, McLarens ...
(Oh yes - and on the subject of Suzuka 2014: Go Daniel!)
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Well to make you guys super jealous/cant wait till i upload pics, we knew a marshall at the track who let us know about the hush hush public walkabout that occurs on the Thursday night in singapore.
We got access to the entire track, with Grosjean, Maldanado, Chilton, Vettel etc doing their track walks! I didnt know what they look like so my dad and brother just pointed and said "take a pic of that guy"! My dad had fun walking around as if he was part of their team lol.
Then we went down the pit lane and looked at all the teams preparing the cars for practice.
After that we were trying to find the route home and bumped rather casually into Nico Hulkenburg going back to his hotel. There were only a few ppl around.
So we waited in that spot till 3am, meeting and taking pictures with Bottas, Perez, Maldanado, Vettel, Chilton, Christian Horner, Toto Wolff, Bianchi, Gutierrez, Sutil, Alonso. Raikonnen sped out in a golf cart so fast that no one could take any pictures lol. Kobayashi and Grosjean were pretty annoyed and so didnt want to take pics/autographs.
There were a few other people too, and i started just taking group shots with some lol.
At 2.45am or so, everyone left, but dad said he had a feeling we should wait a few minutes.
7 minutes later it was just us 3, and Danny Ricciardo came out. He had problems with the car so had to stay back late. He spent 5 minutes with us, a brief chat, some pictures, and he carefully took his time signing my brother's tshirt.
Brother: "we're from Brisbane!"
Ricciardo: "Good on ya fellas!"
Dad: "Good luck for the race!"
Ricciardo: "Cheers mate, you guys have a good night!"
Or so the conversation went haha.
For qualifying, i managed to get a premium photography spot at turn 1 and practice/qualifying at turn 23. What amazing spots, and managed to get photos that i really wasnt expecting to get!
We also saw some great/rare supercars earlier in the trip, highlights of which were a Lamborghini LP720 and a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento.
Sorry for the waffle lol, but its nice to tell a story
A never to be forgotten moment