The Strange World of F1....

On Thursday last, J and J left for Spa to watch her favourite sport - Formula 1 car racing at the Belgian Grand Prix. It's about a 2 hour drive from Brussels to the vicinity of the circuit of Spa-Francorchamps that is located in the Ardennes forest that covers (roughly) an area of about 80 by 50 kilometres of low, hilly country in Belgium and across the border in France.

Our stay had been booked long before, at a camp site named "Spa D'Or" which was about 15 km as the crow flies from the circuit. Our first disappointment was that there were no easy links between the camp and the racetrack so we set off to walk to the nearest bus stop. About 2.5 km later we arrived at a bus stop in the village of Tiege and discovered that there was a bus in about 30 minutes time. This gave us a little time to browse in Tiege and get a drink from the local shop.

Tiege, as you can see from this picture, is one of the few places left in the westernised world where drink driving is actively encouraged! Still, the sign was on a liquor warehouse, so there could be an ulterior motive. Apart from the obvious flaws in the philosophy of drink driving, it does my heart good to see someone being a little rebellious.

On Thursday afternoon there was an open day at the racetrack and the "stars" of Formula 1 made brief appearances for their adoring fans. There were tens of thousands who turned up for this freebie and the crush in and around the pitlane was immense. The stewards didn't help and even tried to stop people walking on the thin strip of grass between the main straight and the collision barriers. Fortunately they were ignored.

In the pits we managed to see some cars being serviced for the race, (are you getting excited now) and we also saw drivers Vettel, Rosberg, a Swede of some notoriety, (that's a Swedish racing driver, not a variety of Turnip) and some other people who were signing autographs but we had no idea who they were.

A pensive Nico Rosberg. That could be Novak Djokovic with him?

 



I managed to see Lewis Hamilton at very close quarters but as soon as I threatened to give him a kiss, he went in the opposite direction. Actually, I was about to take a photo, when a host of raving lunatics jumped on the fence and tried to accost him. I did manage the following close up of some of his body parts though.

 

Yes, hero worshippers, the brown arm in the upper left of the picture, is Lewis Hamiltons! Just don't expect me to get a DNA sample as evidence.

Although Hamilton and Rosberg are "Team Mates", they are not very close. Indeed, I think they would happily knife each other if they got the chance. The contrast in their personalities is also very marked. When Nico Rosberg's arrival in the pits was announced, he walked in, approached to within about 5 metres of the barriers, gave a sheepish grin to a smattering of applause and then.... yes, buggered off.

When Hamilton showed up, it was as though the Beatles had arrived, (for those of you with very long memories). He is amazingly popular but at the same time he's a very natural person and seems to have an unspoilt attitude and manner. He spent about 10 minutes signing whatever items were thrust at him over the fences, as well as talking to quite a few adorants before leaving to ringing cheers.

On Friday, the first day proper of the GP, (for non-followers, there are 3 days of each GP to endure), consists of two 90-minute practice sessions for the Formula 1 cars plus assorted practice sessions
for other, lesser categories of car.

Practice gets really exciting at times, because apart from going round and round 'til someone in their garage radios them and tells them to stop, occasionally they crash. One driver in particular, crashes so regularly, that someone, (a very sad person with no-life), has set up a web-site that tells you how long it has been since Pasta, (that might be Pastor) Maldonado has last crashed. And sure enough Pasta did not disappoint, leaving large chunks of his car spread around the circuit at that point. Fortunately, he was unharmed and lives to crash another day.

 

Pastor's Pit with a profusion of spare bits for when he crashes!

I shouldn't really get too flippant about these crashes because they really are high speed in most cases. The speeds get up to 330kmh at Spa and frequently crashes or gear failures happen at over 200kmh. Two of these failures happened over the weekend, when tyres disintegrated on Rosberg's and Vettel's cars respectively. Rosberg was doing 300kmh and he was very, very lucky not to be hurt or his car damaged, as he had virtually no warning. It takes a lot of bottle to get straight back in and on with it after that sort of thing.

The most exciting part of the race weekend was in the grid qualifying sessions, where there was a bit of a struggle between Hamilton and Rosberg before Hamilton won pole position. We watched the qualifying from a position above the "chicane", which on this racetrack is a double 90 degree turn at the end of the fastest section of the circuit. At this point the cars slow from 300+kmh to about 70kmh in about 150 metres.

On the race day, the three J's (John, Julien and J) watched from a section where the cars travel downhill for about 600 metres before a sharp left hand turn. We had a good view over this section, although we had to arrive at the circuit at 0730 to get a decent spot, (bearing in mind the race doesn't start 'til 1400). It is quite a steep downhill section and the cars are hurled into the downhill corner at full throttle with a couple of brief changes down right at the last moment.

 Our view to the left.....

 

...and to the right with Lewis flashing past in the lead.

 



The race itself was rather a procession with Hamilton leading comfortably from start to finish. The biggest cheer was close to the end of the race when Vettel's tyre blew out, ending his race and promoting Sebastian Grosjean to third place.

At the race presentation the person introducing the drivers started with Grosjean - big cheer! Then Rosberg - virtual silence! Followed by Hamilton - bedlam of cheers! It was almost, (but not quite), enough to make you feel sorry for Rosberg.

 

Going back to the first day's practice, J and J had to rise early and catch a bus to the circuit, (Julien didn't arrive from Luxembourg with his car until late that evening). We got to the circuit without too much trouble but still had a walk of about 5km to get to our selected vantage point. We also walked at least the same distance just scouting out good places to watch on subsequent days on what was a very hot,  (30 degrees plus), day. After the day's session ended we decided to take a "short cut" to get the bus back to the campsite but got bad directions from someone in a campsite and ended up walking at least 5km in the wrong direction.

 

During our wanderings we came across a direction sign to the "US Memorial" in Malmedy, a nearby village about 2km away. We didn't divert to the memorial as by this time we were heading in the right direction for the bus stop. However, I looked up the memorial on Wikipedia and discovered that it was a memorial to a hundred and twenty US infantry captured during the Battle of the Bulge who were machine-gunned by the SS at this place. For good measure, the SS also slaughtered 90-odd local villagers from Stavelot, that is a stone's throw from Malmedy.

 

About 30 US soldiers survived by doing a runner or playing dead and as a result of their experience, (and of course the murders), the US Army issued an order that no more SS were to be taken alive, (although they denied this was ever an official order). There were many tit-for-tat killings as a result though.

Several years after the war, the SS Commander of the whole operation, was discovered living in France. He had served about 10 years in jail for war crimes and refused to move from his new residence. He was found dead in his burned out house. He'd been shot in the chest, apparently by communist ex-resistance members but no one was ever prosecuted.

 

Anyway, after the GP was over, Julien dropped us at our campsite to collect the motorhome and he went back to Luxembourg and us to Brussels. It took us about 2.5 hours to get the 15 km to Tiege as most of the roads round the Ardennes are very narrow and not suited to heavy vehicles or traffic. Then another 3 hours to get to Brussels.

Somewhat ironically I read that one of the main reasons for the Nazi defeat in the Battle of the Bulge was that their heavy tanks couldn't get through these very same roads. Plus ca change, n'est-ce-pas?

 

To finish on a lighter note, I took a snap of these little charmers in one of the hedgerows next to our camp. I'd completely forgotten what these things were until I blundered through a patch of them when I  was fishing and received a nice painful rash from them.

 

 



 

The European Stinging Nettle. Guaranteed to give you a nasty surprise every time. The sting is caused by little spines on the underside of the leaves that contain strong sulphuric acid. When to brush against them the spines break and dowse you in a small amount of acid.

 

However, if you harvest them carefully, they can be used to brew a type of beer or to bake into bread. Get out there and do it!