Belgian Grand Prix, the low-down

AAAAAH! The grand prix was amazing!!! We parked in some random field (after paying €36 for the weekend to do so), just after the first Friday practice session started. I had been excited about finally going to my first grand prix, but it wasn't until we got out of the car and heard the scream of the F1 cars' engines as they went through Les Combes and down toward Rivage that I started to really get giddy! I mean, little child on Christmas morning giddy. Insides feeling like they're going to pop right through my tummy giddy!

a map of the track

We walked up to the track and I was shocked at how loud the cars were, but especially the sound of them downshifting as they braked going into the Rivage corner. It sounded like a series of huge explosions! Like the car was blowing up into a puff of smoke with each downshift! It was crazy!

We took a lot of photos as we entered the track at Les Combes, walked under the track through a tunnel, and were right there at Malmedy as the cars came around Rivage! I think there might have been the best photo opportunity for us cheap bronze level ticket holders! We sat on the huge and steep hill right before Pouhon to watch the rest of the practice session, and then walked around the whole track, getting lost only a few times! We stumbled upon the F1 village, which was an area full of little open buildings for each team selling merchandise, and some even had a car there for you to get photos of it! We walked up Eau Rouge (MAN! What a hill that is to hike!) and sat for the rest of the day on the big hill on the Kemmel Straight.

The way it worked for tickets is that you can pay a whole lot of money to sit in grandstands (s0me of which are even covered!) in the really good corners with giant screens, or you can pay an awful lot of money to sit in grandstands in the pretty good corners with giant screens, or you can just pay a lot of money to fend for a tiny patch of level grass on the side of an enormously steep hill, and maybe get in front of a giant screen if you come early enough!! Well, if you brought a chair you could sit against the fence along the walkways, or if you don't want to see very much you can sit up in the woods. Or you could stave off empty beer cans and falling things on your tiny blanket, trying to make sure your hiney doesn't slip down the hill like we did!!

The F1 cars' practice sessions were fun since I know who everyone is, and I taught Rene to recognize the different teams and a couple of the drivers. By the end of the weekend he got all the teams down pretty well, and he knew Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovaleinen (the drivers of McLaren, my favorite team), as well as Felipe Massa (whom I have not-so-affectionately knicknamed "Felipe Poopsa" since he drives for the evil empire, Ferarri). The GP2, Formula BMW, and Porsche Super Cup practices sessions weren't very thrilling since we didn't know anyone and nothing was really happening except for them speeding around the track.

But Saturday had qualifying sessions and races, which were much more exciting, even for the series we didn't know. It was definitely more crowded when we got there Saturday morning at around 9am, and we decided that we needed to get to the track really early on Sunday or risk not being able to find that choice patch of grass on the side of the hill- we had determined that our first hill just before Pouhon would be the most ideal spot from where to watch the race, and we wanted to make sure that we could get a good spot right in front of the giant screen!

We got up at 6am Sunday morning and made it down to breakfast in the hotel around 6:45, and were surprised at how many people were already up and getting ready to head over to the track like we were! The hotel we stayed at was in Aachen, Germany, and pretty much everyone there was there for the grand prix! We got to the track around 8am and it was already packed! But thankfully we found a nice little patch of grass and settled in for all the other series' races before the F1 race started at 2pm.

It rained on and off all weekend long. Funny enough, it always poured right as the GP2 cars came on the track- all three days! Rene and I were so funny with our 3 umbrellas! We gathered all our bags and jackets onto the blanket and into our laps, held the big umbrella over our heads, and then put one umbrella behind us and the other umbrella in front of us! We had a little umbrella cave that kept us pretty dry! We weren't spared from getting a bit dirty, though, as the mostly-dirt hill became a bit damp.

To pass the time in between practice, qualifying sessions, and races, I had brought a bunch of Dutch children's books with us! Yes! I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I broke down and bought the €28 library card! We already read Nijntje in het ziekenhuis (Nijnte, or Muffy as she is known in English, in the hospital), and Snuffie is zoek (Snuffie is lost) on the train ride to Boxmeer. On Saturday I read Meneer Knie (Mr. Knee) on the side of the hill, and that's when I realized that there were a LOT Of Dutch people at the grand prix, because they were all looking at me and laughing! On Sunday I read Koko geeft een cadeautje (Koko gives a present), and I could tell that the guys to the right of us were finding me very amusing. When I finished Koko and moved onto Emilia kan niet slapen (Emilia can not sleep), I could hear the guys saying, "Emilia!" and "Oh, Emilia" and I can just imagine what they were saying, like, "what she's reading now?!" So I turned to them and informed them that I was learning Dutch, and they started talking to Rene about me and about getting married and moving here and all that. It was quite funny- almost embarrassing, but really more funny than anything!

Oh, and there was this one thing that happened where I said immediately, "this is going on my blog!" We parked in some random person's field Saturday morning (don't worry, they had already moved the cows to a different field!), and I had to pee! I wondered out loud to Rene if there might be a bathroom nearby (we were still at the bottom of a HUGE hill, with the track at the top), and so he immediately turned to one of the parking attendants and asked if there was a bathroom nearby. The guy went to talk to a lady, and she said to follow her (in french), at which time she led me into her house to use her own bathroom!! I was so baffled! I walked in and petted her cat, which was sitting on a table by the door, and used the bathroom while she waited for me by the front door! I felt a little bad since I had to go, but it wasn't an EMERGENCY!

Anyways (I got a little off track- ooh, bad pun) the race was AMAZING! F1 races can sometimes be pretty boring if the guy in the front drives off into the sunset and leaves everyone else in his dust, but that was far from the way the race went that day!! Lewis Hamilton had qualified first, but lost the lead early to Kimi Raikonnen (of the dreaded Ferarri team), and played catch-up for the rest of the race. Heikki Kovaleinen made a serious of really bad mistakes, all of which ended with his gearbox failing on the last lap, right in front of where Rene and I were sitting! We saw poor Heikki climb out of the car and sit with his head in his hands on the opposite hill from us! :( It was very sad, but we were all screaming "Heikki!!" and clapping for him and he waved to us as he got carted away on the back of a moped. It started to rain with about 3 laps to go, and things got CRAZY! It was too late in the race to changed to rain tires, so the drivers had to just slow down and try to stay on the track- they were sliding off left and right! It ended with Lewis and Kimi Raikonnen getting into a skirmish on the last turn on the second to last lap, where Lewis took the lead but cut a corner and had to give it back to Kimi, but in the end Kimi put his car into the wall on the last lap and Lewis won . . . or so we thought . . . turns out Lewis got a 25-second penalty for cutting the chicane, even though he followed the rules and gave the position back to Kimi. But we didn't find this out until Monday, so I'm going to hang onto the good feeling of Lewis winning in front of us and all the excitement of the race!

But the best part is that they let us onto the track once the race was over! We crawled underneath the fence (it was fine, Mom- there was a track employee standing right there!) and ran up to see Heikki's car being towed away (Rene got a lot of good close up pictures of that!). We decided to walk the whole track, since the only other place we had to go was to the car to sit in the field while everyone fought to get out. We got to see the pit lane, and all the teams pit stalls, and the numbered grid boxes on the track just before the start/finish line, and we got to walk up Eau Rouge (a very famous part of the track). It was all quite wonderful!

So in conclusion, the weekend was fantastic, and I have the best husband ever for getting those tickets for me!! My mom (who was dragged to numerous car races by my daddy) told Rene that she "feels for him" since he's not an F1 fan, but I know he had a great time! He was almost as giddy as me at the sound of the engines screaming! But I was so thankful for his willingness to go through all the hassle and money of getting down to Spa, sitting through the cold, the rain, and the wind, getting back to Leiden after midnight, and then having to get up early on Monday morning for work. He's quite wonderful, you know!