26-28/9 (Formula1)

 

By Willy:

The big event finally occurred. The buildup had been going on for a while, with increasing problems for the local traffic, but that wasn't a problem for us, as Willy can walk to the office in 10 mins flat. For most of the local population it seemed more a nuiscance than an event, they just felt the problems and weren't going anyway. And according to some public polls, most locals really didn't know much, or indeed anything at all, about Formula 1.

We finally got our tickets on Thursday - row 59 and seats 18 and 19 on the Marina Bay Grandstand. Grand-stand surely is the right word, it holds 32000 people.

I had taken Friday off, so we could spend the whole weekend a F1, if we felt like it. We went there Friday early afternoon, to se the first tests. Those were not the F1 cars but Aston Martins, Porches and eventually Formula BMW. The latter are much smaler than F1s, but they are proper formula racing cars, as opposed to the Aston Martins and Porches. But they all create a lot of noise. It wasn't only racing, there were also food stands, ice cream stands and music.  And people. But it was also very hot and humid. Evening came and we sat down on our seats to watch the first F1 training session. We calculated that we could see about 4 seconds of the track, and a lap was about 1 minute 45 seconds. The track went under the section where we were sitting, so we culd also feel the cars going under us. And later we went down a staircase to where we could actually see, and certainly hear, the cars. You haven't heard anything loud till you have heard a F1 racer inside a building, the sound was above 130DB.

 

Saturday I went early by myself, I didn't have so much of a problem with the heat. But I was sweating a lot. There were a lot more people than the day before. iwatched some of the Aston Martins, Porches and eventually Formula BMW qualifyings. I found a good stand at corner 11, where thar cars came around relative slowly and accellerated  out of the corner. We met up a little later by our seats, and watched the F1 qualifying there.

 

Sunday I again went early afternoon by myself. It was still hot and humid and I was quickly again drenched in sweat. I saw some entertainment during afternoon. It was to young couples doing firedance. Not very good and the music was much too loud. Soon after I saw the procession of vintage cars, each with one of the F1 drivers in.

At long last the race began. There was a big screen in front of us, but with the distance, it did not feel that big. And it turned out that it was there that we should look for the exiting events. The most dramatic crash happend at 'our' stretch, but we couldn't see anything because the car ended up against the wall closest to us, so it was hidden from us. But I was great fun to be together with so many people and really feel the race.