Saturday
26th May 2012
Qualifying day! I was almost
feeling something approaching optimism, for a change. Generally
Saturday afternoons will find me sitting on the sofa with my head in
my hands at the end of Q2. However after an eventful FP3 which saw
Felipe second on the timesheets, surely, surely, this would be the
race when he finally got into Q3.
I never take many
photographs during qualifying or the race when I'm at a GP – I
don't have a good enough camera, I don't have the ability, and I find
if I try to take photos, I dick about with my camera too much
and end up missing what's going on right under my nose.
After FP3, we went to the
tabac behind our grandstand that the corner is named after. It sells
lots of semi-tacky memorabilia, like keyrings, t-shirts, and
ashtrays. My eye was on their splendid array of postcards, though.
Not only do I like to get nice postcards any time I travel anywhere,
I also love the old vintage Monaco GP posters. I have a book about
them, and a print of the 1965 one hanging on my kitchen wall. It took
some pretty extreme willpower on my part to not buy some of the many
other Monaco posters available (and now I'm home, I really wish I
had). I limited myself to five postcards and they're now framed and
hanging in my kitchen wall. A nice memento of the week, I feel.
So. Qualifying. We watched
from the K3 grandstand, which again allowed us views of Ste. Devote,
Tabac, the tunnel exit, and the swimming pool. While I knew Felipe
should make it into Q3 going on his performance so far, I was worried
about traffic. Thankfully those worries were unfounded, and he
finished Q2 at the top of the timesheets. I was so, so happy. My eyes
even may have been stinging a bit behind my sunglasses as I saw MAS
at the top of the big screen opposite us (but don't tell anyone). It
felt good – after a really, really tough start to the season, it
was wonderful to see Felipe back to the way we know he can drive –
committed, feisty, a little bit crazy. Let's hope it continues,
because I think he's taken a hell of a lot of shit from the media and
fans recently, and not all of it has been deserved. I'm quite aware
that he's had a couple of lousy races this season so far, but there's
others on the grid who have also, yet they seem to get a free pass
from criticism. I firmly believe that the awesomeness is still in
there somewhere, and I hope Monaco was just the beginning. I don't
believe in just giving up on a driver when they're not doing well, I
don't like fans who chop and change who their favourite driver is
depending on who's winning, and I plan to continue having faith in
wee Felipe. I get emotionally attached to drivers at the best of times, but when you've spent a night not knowing whether the driver you support is going to be alive when you wake up, and when you follow every single tiny development in their recovery, you kind of become protective of them. But I digress. I shall try not to go off on any more of a
pro-Massa rant. Not today anyway.
After Q2, Q3 was a bit of an
anti-climax. 7th was alright, but if truth be told I'd
been hoping and expecting something higher. Then again, if Felipe had
qualified in the top 3, or even the top 5, I probably would have had
to have shown some kind of emotion in public, and that would never
do. So we were both happy enough with a top 10 place on the grid.
Michael getting pole position was a bit of a shocker, and I didn't
even realise when he set the quickest time that qualifying was over.
I can only imagine that the takings for Mercedes merchandise
increased dramatically in the immediate aftermath, and indeed we saw
two women at the train station carrying intensely creepy Michael
Schumacher dolls. I don't have a photo of these – it's probably for
the best, as I don't want to give people nightmares.
We watched a bit of the GP2
race after that, although I think I may have been lying there with my
eyes closed at that point – going to a Grand Prix is a bit like an
endurance event when you test yourself to see how much you can
actually walk on as little amount of sleep as humanly possible.
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| GP2 carnage (again) |
We spent the majority of
Saturday evening standing outside the Ferrari motorhome again. We saw
Rob walking about but by that stage we'd seen him so many times it
was kind of embarrassing, so I didn't want to gawk at him (well, I
did want to, but I resisted). He was too busy sneaking down
the side of the motorhomes for a quick cigarette and what may or may
not have been a cheeky beer anyway.
We also saw various media
types and celebrities mingling about, such as Lee McKenzie and DC
filming at the top of the Mercedes motorhome, and Ron Howard. I
laughed when Ron Howard walked past – during a trip to Universal
Studios in LA several years back, there were videos of him
introducing himself ("Hi! I'm Ron Howard!") before
the Backdraft ride which made my best friend Kerri (AKA @WifeBuddy)
and I howl with laughter at the time. (You needed to be there – but
suffice to say it was one of the funniest days of our lives).
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| Apparently my dad liked DC's green shirt |
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| Damon Hill takes time out of his busy schedule of looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights on Sky |
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| "Hi! I'm Ron Howard!" |
Jade saw Will Smith
(thankfully I did not – every film of his I have ever had the
misfortune to watch has been a pile of crap), and George Lucas was
also hanging about in Ferrari. His girlfriend actually came out of
Ferrari, talking on her mobile. She was ranting about there being "a
problem with the cooker". At least, that's what I thought
she said. Jade thought she said "hooker", which perhaps
makes more sense, scarily.
Things seemed to be winding
down in the paddock so we stood chatting to the guy whose job it was
to stand outside Ferrari checking people's passes. Martin, I believe
his name was. He was from Kent. He looked a tad like Sergio Perez
which can surely only lead to more rumours. He was a good laugh to
talk to, giving us suggestions as to how we could get into the
paddock ("Take your tops off"), and revealing that they'd
been put up in a hotel near Nice airport where there were
prostitutes, and the breakfasts were "shit". The glamour of
working for Ferrari, eh?
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| Our friend Martin on the steps (oh, and Felipe) |
We stayed there long enough
to see both Fernando and Felipe again, before the very real threat of
severe dehydration forced us to go to Stars N' Bars to get a much
needed drink.
The way home saw Hideous
Train Experience No. 3. The last train from Monaco to Nice was
due at the stupidly early time of 9.42pm, meaning that everyone in
the entire Principality was trying to get onto it. We were stuck
standing on the train, packed like sardines, for around 20 minutes in
stifling heat before it even moved. Thankfully on this occasion, we
had a reasonably okay amount of room to stand in, but the area beside
the train doors was horribly busy, with people trying to push on,
girls crying because they'd been getting pushed, and an English man
threatening to beat up an Australian guy who'd accidentally knocked
into his wife/girlfriend/whoever. To be fair, the Australian guy was
the only person keeping me sane on the horrific journey back to Nice
– he was cracking jokes and serenading some poor girl who was with
her parents with 'You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling'.
It was a relief to get off
the train and its threat of violence without expiring from heat
exhaustion and dehydration. 'I need JUICE!' became my battlecry for
the remainder of the week, and I'd like to thank the tabac beside
Nice Riquier train station right now for always, always being open,
and for selling me Orangina and that awesome mango-y juice drink on
the Saturday and Sunday nights. Without you I would surely have
shrivelled up and died.
The thing that struck me
about Monaco was how the whole week was an experience. At all the
other GP's I'd been to previously, the race itself was obviously the
main focal point of the entire trip. But in Monaco, so much had
already happened by the Saturday night that I did have to catch
myself now and again and think 'Oh that's right, there's a RACE on
tomorrow!'
Sunday
27th May 2012
The race day nerves were
bad. Very bad. I've always wondered how much my heart rate increases
just before the beginning of a race – all I know is that I normally
want to breathe into a brown paper bag and/or heave.
We got settled into the
grandstand, with the banners hung (lovingly crafted by Jade with a
sheet, masking tape, and car spray paint), and waited for the
driver's parade to start. As always, I tried to film it, and as
always, I made a mess of it. It's good to see the drivers before the
start of the race but it really is nigh on impossible to distinguish
who is who when they insist on sticking them all on the back of a
lorry together before speeding past your grandstand.
My usual procedure for the
race start when I'm watching at home is to go into the kitchen and
hide behind the door until I know that Felipe is safely past the
first corner, or to pace about the living room, or to shield my eyes
with a miniature schnauzer. When you're there, you can't do that –
you have to actually look. Thankfully both Ferraris just
missed the Lotus of Grosjean, and got away cleanly. All week I had
had this idea in my head that Felipe wouldn't make it past the first
corner, so I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief and start to
enjoy the race once all the cars were safely past us on the first
lap. If he had gone out in lap 1, Monaco would have been hit
with a massive temper tantrum, the like of which it had never
seen.
I actually managed to get a
half-decent video of our view of the first lap (although it's come out pretty rubbish quality here) -
I've been home a week now
and I have to confess I still haven't seen the race yet. I'm still
working my way through the coverage of the practice sessions at the
moment, as work and real life has boringly gotten in the way. I've
obviously heard people complaining that it was boring, which doesn't
surprise me in the slightest. Unless you throw in a bit of rain, you
generally don't get much drama in Monaco these days so I have no
qualms about sitting down to watch a race that I expected to be
processional anyway. Boring or not, I enjoyed it from where I
was sitting, that's for sure. The last few laps were nerve-wracking
as the top 6 were so close to one another, and I was very happy
indeed that Felipe was in the mix.
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| See? THIS IS WHY I DON'T TAKE RACE PHOTOS |
If the rain had come just ten
minutes earlier than it did, then who knows who could have won it. As
it was, it only started to belt down just after the race ended, and
as I stood there, cold and wet and worried about the rain soaking
through my bag and ruining my autograph book, I thought 'Well, NOW
this feels like a normal Grand Prix.'
During the slowing down lap,
all the yachts honked their horns as the cars went past. It was a
nice touch.
Mark Webber obviously
wouldn't have been my first choice of winner, but I wasn't too
offended by him taking the victory. As long as it wasn't McLaren I
was reasonably pleased. I saw Mark take his first win at Nurburgring
in 2009 as well, so my presence at races seems to be rather good for
him. As for Felipe, Jade and I had been expecting to want to hang
ourselves after the race given the way things have been going this
year, but we were both very pleased with his race. Sure, 6th
place wasn't ideal, but it was a good solid points finish, and so we
were able to put away the nooses and razor blades we'd packed. It was
nice, for once, not to feel despondent after a race.
As it was our last chance to
get to the paddock that week, we went there immediately after the
race and took our usual spot outside Ferrari. Shame? Us? No, not so
much. It was quite sad to see the teams starting to pack up and
disassemble the motorhomes already, and there was a real sense of
winding down. Sob! There were some media types and drivers walking up
and down, and celebrities like Boris Becker, who'd been on the
rooftop of Mercedes.
Steph came down and told us
that Rob Smedley was at the other end of the paddock, being
interviewed by Jake Humphrey et al. We realised that it must be for
the BBC forum, and indeed it was. Having since watched his interview,
he was saying how he thought Felipe could have gotten a better
result. It's a shame that he didn't end his interview by headbutting
Jake and dropkicking the poison leprechaun EJ into the harbour, but
you can't have everything, can you?
About five or ten minutes
after the interview, he came out of Ferrari and noticed us. He walked
over, saying "It's the Felipe fans!" Yay, he remembered us
and was happy to chat. He said much the same as he had on the BBC –
that they could have gotten a better result – but he put it in
slightly less polite terms to us... potty mouth. Jade revealed
the banner to him, and his response was "Yeah, I like Led
Zeppelin too" – followed by a grin and a wink. There was a
lot I'd have liked to have chatted to him about, for example, I'd
have loved to have told him that in 16 years of being a Ferrari fan,
I'd never enjoyed F1 so much since he and Felipe were teamed up, but
natural shyness and being conscious about not bothering him prevented
me from blabbering away. I always worry about taking up these
people's time, or pestering them - they must get it all the time from
fans at every race they work at. However, all bias aside (genuinely),
Rob has never been anything but extremely friendly and willing to
sign and pose for photos; not just for us but for the other people I
saw asking him. As he left he told us "Keep supporting
Felipe." Always.
Nothing could have topped
that, but we waited a little while longer outside Ferrari in case
Felipe was still about. We saw his wife and brother leaving, but
Felipe was nowhere to be seen. I wasn't too disappointed – I'd seen
him loads over the course of the week and gotten photos and an
autograph, which far surpassed what I had expected. We did get one
final appearance from Fernando, who kindly posed with some fans who
were following him in the paddock. Then he was gone. They were all
gone. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
After dinner we reluctantly
made our way back to the train station. We had about an hour and a
half's wait until the last train, so we sat outside a little bar
where a band was playing outside. They played Rolling Stones, U2 and
Eric Clapton songs, and people were dancing and drinking outside. It
was ace. Well, ace aside from the fact that they also played Zombie
by The Cranberries, AKA THE WORST SONG OF ALL TIME. We sat on the
bench listening to them, feeling sad that the whole experience was
over but extremely happy at the same time that our driver had had a
good day and we'd managed to have a proper chat with our most
favourite race engineer.
Despite the best efforts of
SNCF, even Hideous Train Experience No. 4 couldn't kill the
buzz of what had been an absolutely spectacular day. I mean, it
almost killed US, but not the buzz. Once again it was massively
overcrowded, with people pushing on. We were standing in the carriage
completely squashed and unable to move our arms. Jade was worried
about fainting, and I was worried about falling over and getting
trampled (I'm both short and unsteady on my feet even when sober).
The train didn't move despite the fact that there was no way they
could fit any more people onto it, and it was scary and hot and
dangerous. When an announcement came over the tannoy that the train
would not be moving until the police(?!) arrived, we bailed and got
ourselves off the train before both of us passed out. We had to deal
with the possibility of either paying around €100 each for a taxi
back to Nice, or sleeping in the train station. Thankfully, a couple
of minutes later, the train decided to depart and we managed to get
back on. I spent the journey pressed right against the door, trying
not to fall, and if it wasn't for the fact a security guard was
standing behind me, I probably would have completely freaked out with
how claustrophobic it was. It was genuinely one of the most
scary experiences of my life and really, SNCF – you need to
sort it out. Should I be able to go to Monaco next year, staying
closer to Monaco so we don't have to put up with train bullshit is
going to have to be considered. It was really, really awful, and the
only thing that could have put a dampener on the week (although
thankfully, it didn't).
In case it's not blindingly
obvious from this blog, I had the absolute time of my life in Monaco.
It didn't just match my expectations, it far exceeded them in a way I
didn't think imaginable. I saw and met everyone that I'd wanted to,
and my favourite driver had his best race of the season. You can't
really ask for more, can you? (Well, aside from a pass into Ferrari).
I used to roll my eyes when
people described Monaco as F1's 'jewel in the crown' - I've been to
Silverstone, Spa, Nurburgring and Monza, and I adored each and every
one of them (especially Monza, swoon), but Monaco is definitely very,
very special. I get it now. The access you get to the teams
and drivers is fantastic, and you get to see so much more of the
paddock and pits than you do at any other race. Yes, it's expensive –
but every Grand Prix is expensive to go to (especially when you live
in Northern Ireland and going anywhere requires a flight). In
terms of track food and merch, it isn't any more of a rip-off than
anywhere else, and probably less so than the British GP. If you're
prepared to stay outside Monaco itself and not blow a fortune eating
and drinking out every day, you can do it for the same amount as
other races in mainland Europe.
I'm really hoping to be at
the 2013 Monaco GP too. We'll see – it depends both on getting time
off work, and the driver market next year (please don't break my
heart, Ferrari). For anybody else thinking about it, my advice would
be just do it. Start saving now, and GO. You absolutely will not
regret it.
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| Bye, Monaco. See you next year, I hope |
