Nice stories from Monza

http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/sports/f1/?p=497

Nice stories from Monza
Posted by Brad Spurgeon in General, Weekend notes
It’s Thursday in Monza. The sun goes in and comes out, the temperature is still 30 degrees Celsius at 6 PM. There is a sense of something in the air here, although I have a hard time defining it. Let’s just say, anticipation.

There will undoubtedly be plenty of time for nasty stories over the weekend and also for picking up on the latest news about the Lewis Hamilton penalty - incidentally, remember that Max Mosley is on his first official paddock visit this weekend since that scandal (although it will undoubtedly be forgotten after last weekend’s scandal) - so I have decided that I would just make mention of a couple of nice stories.

Fuji TV, which covers F1 for Japan, has a very special guest driver here this weekend. Television stations often call on drivers to help us understand what it’s all about, and in this case Fuji has done the same but better. As I was walking through the paddock I spotted Jenson Button crouching down and talking to a Japanese child. It turned out that Jenson was being interviewed by the boy. The boy is named Sena Sakaguchi, and he is nine years old, and he is a go-karting champion in Japan. Fuji is doing a piece about his career this weekend, and they brought him a long to attend his first Formula One event - and to interview Jenson (and possibly others). Oh yes, and Sena is named after Ayrton Senna….

The boy asked his own questions, and while I missed them, I picked up a couple of the answers from Jenson. It had to do with racing, and the boy was asking Jenson’s advice. I liked the answers and thought they reflected well on Jenson’s position, and of course, that of anyone in Formula One:

“Being strong in the head,” Jenson said to a question on how to make it here. “You may not always agree with what others say, but it is very important to listen.”

“Also, always being very relaxed,” he added, and I think he meant while on the track - but that can help elsewhere in the paddock too….



The other nice story is the photo exhibition at the Red Bull team’s Energy Station that just opened (and will close in a few hours?) to honor David Coulthard’s Formula One career. I saw several drivers going to pay respect to the old man who will retire at the end of the season. Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso went at the same moment, and as Alonso left, Button came along.

What I particularly liked was how Red Bull put up all these photos, they have no qualms about showing off and advertising Coulthard with the branded uniforms and logos of the other teams for which Coulthard drove, McLaren and Williams.

An altogether nice and friendly and open atmosphere.

I was thinking of dropping around to photograph the old banked part of the Monza track - a track that is much older than the Scuderia Ferrari, by the way, and therefore a very big monument to Italian motor racing, or should we say ‘temple’ - but I already did that a couple of years ago on this blog. So no point repeating myself. I hope this weekend will not repeat the errors of last weekend, but given that the weather forecast is currently for rain even on race day, we could be in for some more fun.