Getting some live F1 experience

So, the last two days have been all about the F1 race at Sepang! I've never been to a F1 circuit race before and I'm not a huge motorsport fan but, as F1 is the biggest stage, I do keep track of the standings and current results. Besides, seeing things live usually adds a lot more to the experience than merely watching it on TV.

The Sepang International Circuit, SIC!

The biggest thing I guess was that the 7-time world champion and arguably one of the best of all times, Michael Schumacher, was driving for the "home team" of Mercedes whose biggest sponsor is the Malaysian oil company Petronas. (Was that just one sentence? Yeah, I think it was...)
Schumacher's first car!

Anyway, saturday saw a lot of heavy rains and I also arrived pretty late at the tracks. As the qualification rounds started at 16 and I arrived close to 17, I was worried that I'd miss the party! Luckily for me (but probably not as luckily for the drivers), the daily "shower" (Actually it's more like someone throwing a bucket of water at you, just that they keep on doing that for at least 30 minutes!) had the qualification postponed, so I did get some F1 action that day. The problem was that since I arrived so late, they'd stopped selling ear plugs and I hadn't brought any of course... Since the stands were made of concrete and the team depots were inside this huge building, the sound of the engines echoed pretty loudly! First time the sound hit me, I felt like I was run over! It might've just as well been a jumbo jet taking off! And the vibrations could be felt through the shaking camera that was in my hand! That DEFINATELY doesn't go through the TV screens! Let's just say I didn't take my fingers out of my ears just to get a good picture for you guys... Still, even after I'd left, my ears were still in chock as they ached quite a bit even though there was no ringing in the ears... I guess the only word I can come up with to describe the experience was that is was MASSIVE!

Sunday was the big racing day and I thought I'd go out to the tracks early to beat the horrendous traffic jams. I also planned to buy ear plugs this time... Unfortuantely everywhere I went, they had sold out the ear plugs and they just looked at me with an apologetic look and said "It's F1 now, you know?" and shrugged their shoulders. My immediate thought was "Then why not order a lot more and make some money??", but I didn't say it out loud and I guess I was just a bit irritated after managing to find 6 different pharmacies without any luck of finding ear plugs. I confess to my mistake!
I did manage to get a shot of the chaos 35sec before the start of the final warm up lap!

It proved though that I didn't beat the traffic jam as it took FOREVER to get there (which is like 2,5 hours at a distance that took about 10 min the day before). Luckily they sold ear plugs before boarding the bus and I finally got myself a couple of horrendously overpriced ones(They cost 5 RM ~ 11 SEK ~ 1 EUR!)! Well at the tracks I managed to get to my seating area about 5 mins before the race started. Perfect timing! And with the ear plugs on, I could actually take pictures as well!! The only problem with the race was that they passed by so quickly that it was hard to follow who's who. I could see that the two cars from the Red Bull- team was first, but I missed that Vettel beat Webber at the start as my seat was on the other side of the track... Maybe a big TV screen would've helped...


Starting the last warm up lap

I also got to see Schumacher forfeit the race and being taken back to the depot on a motorcycle while waving his hands to the crowd. It looked hilarious! Also the cheering when the last placed car went by was unexpectedly funny as well :)
Yes, that IS Schumacher at the back of the motorcycle!

All in all, it was definately a great experience and I'm very thankful to uncle Ismail for giving me tickets to the event. I promise to never ever forget his name (even in the confusion of boarding a bus) again!! Despite the massive traffic, I thought the whole thing was very well organised as there were never any doubts about where to go for transportation or where to line up and besides the traffic jams, there acutally weren't any queues anywhere. I guess "Malaysia Boleh!"*
Yasir Boleh!

* "Malaysia Boleh" is the slogan that's been used widely across the country whenever things go well for the country or when they reach certain achievements. It translates into "Malaysia Can!" and private unofficial sources (that I cannot reveal) say that Barack Obama may have found this slogan on the Internet and decided to make it his campaign motto! ;)