Up Close & Personal With The Grand Prix

I’m a bit of a Grand Prix fan and for those of you who cannot work out why people are so enthusiastic about noisy cars running around various tracks bumping into one another, get yourself off to Monaco for a Grand Prix day. Or any circuit on the calendar for that matter.

The atmosphere is incredible. I don’t even think you need to be a car nut – the noise, the glamour, the personalities and eventually, the start from the grid which must be one of the most amazing sights in global sport, cannot fail to grab you.

I was fortunate enough to get to the Monaco Grand Prix a few years ago and there was no way I could have even come close to anticipating what it was going to be like – awe inspiring I would say. Of course Monaco is quite different from other circuits on the tour as they basically have to close the city whilst the GP is on. Residents have to show a pass to get into their own streets but then again most Monaco residents move out for GP weekend, renting their apartments for tens of thousands of euros for the duration of the race.

The other thing about the Monaco GP is that as soon as qualifying has finished, the streets are opened and fans like me can wander around the circuit getting quite close to those things you only ever see on TV. The picture at the start is of my 3 sons standing outside the teams’ motor homes just after chatting to David Coulthard and wishing him well. The following day he won!

And the point is ? The point is that whilst Monaco is probably the only GP where the fans can interact with their heroes by wandering around the circuit, looking at the Safety Car, watching people come and go from the motor homes etc, in general, Formula 1 is very good at that sort of PR. And that’s not something you would expect – I mean these guys earn up to £20m per year driving these cars and yet they are quite accessible. Can you imagine a Chelsea fan having a chat with John Terry just before a game? No chance! And on a slightly wider, but related perspective can you imagine Sir Alex Ferguson inviting all the football press to dinner the night before a big game? And, all his players are there, quite relaxed and talking quite freely to the newspaper correspondents. Well this happens in Formula1. The URL below will take you to a blog for the Times reporter who reports on the Grand Prix races. Have a read at it and see just how close he gets to almost total access to the teams and to the snippets of info which you’d never read anywhere else – even in his column in the Times.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/formula_one/2009/08/at-spa-the-greatest-track.html