Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 35 Continued

Race Day!  Sunday we went back out for the actual race.  Prior to the start, we made our way through all the different booths again, and we decided to see what I would look like as a race driver.

 

In the food pavillion, there were tons of different choices, from Chinese to Indian to Kentucky Fried Chicken, even Krispy Kreme donuts.  There was this mascot for one of the stores hanging out .. kinda cute. 

Getting to the start, we had the cars lined up along with the safety car in front.

A little bit of excitement before the race.  So each of us that have a ticket in the section we were in had a section and seat assignment.  On the bench-style seating were the seat numbers.   So see the guy the blue Renault cap and the guy in the white Vodafone hat?  So they are sitting on the stairs and not in a seat, which seemed to piss off a few people because they didn't pay for good seats like we did and instead, decided just to crash.  So this Chinese guy behind us takes alot of offense to this and he gets this rent-a-cop to come up and they had words back and forth with these guys, but in the end, nothing happened and he still sat there on the stairs during the race.

We had a TV helicopter that kept hovering right over the stands

Just to give a few of how many people were there, you can see that the stands are pretty well full.

And the lights start for the parade lap ...just a nice trip around the track in advance of the actual start...

Lining back up for the start of the race...

3 of the 5 lights are now on ... the other 2 will light, then go out ... and they were OFF!

We had hoped for a bit more action coming down the start and into the first turn, but it was a pretty clean start.

So from here out for awhile, we'll just have the pictures I took throughout the race, which were quite a bit.


 

And here comes Nico Rosberg across the finish line to win the 2012 Shanghai Formula 1 race.

Victory lap

So, this was our first Formula 1 race that we attended in person.  We've been watching on TV for many years.  To be honest, I'm glad that we went, but I'm not sure that I would really go again.  This race specifically was a bit boring for me since Nico started with a 10 second lead after the first lap and ended with a 20 second lead and nobody really was ever close.  The only car that went out was Schumacher and he went out due to stupidity (left the pits early and one of his wheels wasn't on right... not sure who's fault it was ... drive or pit crew.  There were no crashes, spins, cars ending up in the kitty litter.  At least at the end, there was a little excitement as the drivers jockeyed for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places.  Also, we got to see really only one section of the track.  We were able to see the coverage on the TV, and it seemed like there was a bit of passing in the hairpin after the backstraight, but we missed all of that.

But .. again, glad that we went!

That's all for this week.  Next week will be a general week with stuff around Shanghai, and then a weekend trip to Seoul, South Korea and the DMZ between North and South Korea.  Then I head back to the US for a week for business.