Agreed, but even nicer now with the advent of giant screens and CCTV you can carry around with you on a cord around your neck. Nice photos, by the way!
Since I've only been to Montreal once and it was last year that would be the best for me. Glad I did it last year and not this one since now I have a herniated disc and broken vertebrae so I don't think I'd be able to walk around this year. I got some good photos though. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Frank, Like you it was my 1st F1 experience. Indy as a town......well no comment. Indy as an F1 track.....a joke. But I did get to experience MS in his prime. Wet track, cold temps and Michael passes Coultard on the "outside" of turn 1. That was a move that is etched in my brain. No one came close to what Michael showed the crowd that day. Later while leading by a wide margin he fell asleep and spun for no reason. Shows that he is human. Never went back to Indy for the obvious reasons. But I feel I did get to see Michael show how great he truly was.
Sorry to hear about your back. Have some therapy, helped me. Fantastic pictures! I'm currently building a model of that '69 Ferrari.
Indy as a town embraced the GP actually more than several other cities in Europe (eg Valencia or Istanbul). And unlike some European GPs there actually is a town with hotels, restaurants, bars and airport. Unlike eg Spa or Silverstone. As for the track: while it is Mickey Mouse, they did let you walk around and sit anywhere on non race days, unlike eg Montreal. And it had the cheapest tickets of the entire season. And infrastructure like toilets and concession stands with short lines.
I've done some physical therapy and some epidural injections, nothing has seemed to help very much yet. That vintage Ferrari F1 car was the best sounding car of the weekend, and the exhaust just looks so amazing too.
You presume the ability to sit anywhere is a positive thing... for me, it's not. If I pay for an expensive seat, I want it when I am watching qualifying. Every race I have been to, the stands are mostly if not completely full on race day. Why should someone who paid for the best seat have to get there hours early or stand because someone else grabbed the seat? Obviously people are willing to pay for better seats, so they should get what they pay for. Cheap tickets are always good I never saw any difference in lines for toilets or concessions at any of the races I've ever been to.
I've been to Monaco twice. Both times I very much enjoyed it. The atmosphere is unique and the sounds of the cars through the city pretty magical. You can see a good part of the circuit also from a lot of the seats. I was at Paul Ricard when it had a GP. It was OK. The course layout is rather boring but you can walk around most of it. I was in Phoenix when they had a GP. That was not so good but I was right in front of the Alesi vs Senna series of passes -- so that was memorable. I was in the pits at Montreal crewing in the Formula Atlantic support race for a friend of mine. That was a lot of fun. I like Montreal a lot and working in the pits at the end of pit lane during a race weekend was something really memorable. It's a very good venue to watch a race also. I walked most of the circuit in the off time. I was in Singapore a couple of years ago. I like the night race but it is hot and humid. Back in the 70's, I think I went to 3 or 4 Long Beach GP's -- all of them fantastic. I would have to say that Long Beach was one of my favorites. I never went to the Cart or Indy races there after they lost F1.
For me its Monza, Silverstone and Monaco. Went to Spa last year, and no its not an.easy place to get out of after a race at all (4 plus hours). Unless you have gold section seats, its like a great toilet. Back to Monza and Spain F1 this year as part of two driving tours.
My point about the seats is not to steal somebody's gold seat but to see and photograph the cars at different spots of the track. Most tracks have equally long lines except for Silverstone. Maybe the Brits are just more patient than the rest of the world?
Couldn't agree more. I always sat in the North View seats and saw more race than anywhere else that I have attended a GP. Once they put the variable message signs up on the freeway it was really easy to get there too (I wrote to the highway department and suggested it, and what do you know, the next year they had them!). Also, the concours they had downtown on Saturday was a nice touch. Don't know how to do two quotes on the same post, but just a note, at the first Indy GP Schumacher's great spin occurred on the last lap. I believe he had a 1:14 lead when it occurred and Barichello was closing fast when Michael got it straightened around and went on to win.
Montreal is great, but I'm biased, it is my hometown. Shanghai is out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the city and is about as exciting for a fan as going to a parking lot.
That to me is one good example of what a GP weekend should be. Of course Monaco and Montreal have tons of that kind of stuff/activies/F1 hoopla, but then there are towns like Valencia, Budapest, Istanbul where you wouldn't even know the GP is in town. Or GPs without a town nearby celebrating F1. Indy had F1 related art galleries, many shops and restaurants carried F1 specials and parties, there were F1 cars at several locations. That's embracing the GP. Anybody who has "only" gone to Montreal will be disappointed at some of the European venues. You'd think it is a Euro sport and a relatively small city/country should be honored and excited about having the GP but you couldn't tell by the complete lack of endorsement. However I'm optimistic that Austin will be just as good in embracing the GP for the weekend as Indy was. After all Americans know how to throw a party and how to make a buck off merchandising.
One nice touch that Long Beach had in its F1 days: except on race day, all grandstand seats, except the highest-priced seats near the pits, were "roaming" seats. If you had a seat in any grandstand, you could sit in any other seat in any other grandstand, except, of course, for those high-end seats. So you could "roam" around the track during P & Q and sample other grandstands for as long as you liked. Of course, on those days those stands were never full; I'm not sure that would work nowadays in Montreal, where Saturday is usually a full house as well. Considering that at Long Beach, you had to be either in a grandstand seat or in a surrounding building in order to see anything, that was a good feature. "General admission" seats at LB were virtually worthless.
Back in September of 06 with the help of close friends in Milano I arranged a car experience trip to Italy for 26 people. The first night of the trip was a stay at the Una Casani hotel in the center of Milano. The next morning we awoke to a perfectly blue sky. After a quick breakfast we had a coach take us to Linate Aeroport. There we boarded a series of helicopters that landed inside the track at Monza. Waiting for us were our own linen-clothed tables where a full 4 course lunch was served along with an open bar. Upstairs we had our own box to watch the race. We also had pit passes for our group to tour while cars were prepped. Michael Schumacher won, Rubens came in 2nd.....a glorious day. To top it all off MS announced his retirement to the crowd on the track after winning the race. After much more celebration we boarded the helis to take us back to Linate. A few lucky ones in our group rode the heli w/ one of the drivers [can't remember which]. That was an experience......
They have security at every grandstand and also at points leading to the Senna Curve throughout all three days.
Montreal has become really horrible in that regard. You can only go to cerain areas of the track based on your seat. Forget the fact that you can't go to other grandstands, but the entire southern part of the Island is off limits if your seats are from the hairpin at the North end. That's just ridiculous. You can't even visit the shops South of the Casino.
That is the one thing that I hate about Montreal, but I still really prefer to just watch from home. Coffee is better there.
Agreed, totally unnecessary and an unfriendly portent for those who have travelled serious miles to enjoy the race. When my family lived on the Rive Sud, my mother used to drop the brood off at the beginning of the span for Victoria Bridge. We'd QUICKLY scramble out and inevitably meet security at the fence with their Alsatians in tow as there was no real entrance. By race day, they knew who we were and we'd bring coffee/donuts for them and dog treats for the mutts. I don't know if that would work now but it it was a 5 minute commute to Senna, well worth the peril....
I had been to Montreal on 11 occasions between 1982 and 1998, and one of the pleasures on Saturday, as it had been at Watkins Glen and even Long Beach and Detroit, was being able to walk around the circuit and take photos from a variety of locations. In fact, I never used my grandstand seat until the late-day support race activity after qualifying. There was even general-admission seating on the ground in front of the Senna curve grandstands. When I returned in 2001, I was appalled to find out that all of my favorite photo vantage points from prior years were off-limits, or now taken up by new or lengthened grandstands. In some cases it was hospitality chalets, in some cases it was TV camera locations, and in some cases it seemed to be for no good reason! Every photo I took that weekend was from my grandstand seat (which at least was a good one, in stand 24 overlooking the hairpin exit). That's the main reason I decided not to go back until last year!
