Grand Prix Du Canada

We arrived Thursday, June 10th, 2010 in Montreal, Canada for the Formula One race, Canadian Grand Prix. As it turned out, we drove up in the rain and drove back Monday in the rain, while luckily, we stayed dry in between. Race day, Sunday, turned out to be very nice. Practice on Friday and qualifications on Saturday featured overcast skies with the threat of rain any moment. We stayed at the Hotel Gouverneur Place Dupuis on St. Hubert street. This was our third time there for the races; it is one metro stop from the race track and offers garage parking. At right is the beautiful view of Montreal from our window on the 21st floor. We could exit the hotel and walk through the underground shops, restaurants and tunnels to the metro station without ever going outside. A real plus in inclement weather. Once at the track, we had about a two mile walk to our grandstand seats, tribune 11, section 3, row h. We selected this tribune because it faces the start of the race and the first curve and the exit from pit row: this is where the real action generally takes place and we were not disappointed in this instance. On Friday and Saturday nights, Grand Prix Tours, as part of our package, included cocktails, a meal, and interviews with Rubens Barrichello, Jackie Steward and up and coming driver Conner Daily. At left is racing art display featured on Friday night while on right Rubens is being interviewed by Peter Windsor.


As mentioned, the walk to the seats was long, but it offered some interesting points along the way. Here I am by a small waterfall with still a long way to walk to our seats. What really made the walk difficult was the very large number of fans; different speeds, crisscrossing, stopping, and several bottlenecks along the way as the path narrowed, crowds gathered at souvenir stands, etc. The worst day, of course, was race day itself with crowds estimated in 250,000 or more. Did I mention the crowds in the subway? The system was terrific in handling the crowds, but boy, each car was jam packed. But, on to the race. I was rooting for Vettel on the Renault Red Bull team. After qualifications, he was second. Louis Hamilton of McLaren MB was 1st, Weber of Red Bull, 7th. Seven time world champion Michael Schumacher was 13th. The presentation of the flags of each driver's nationality started the ceremonial beginning of the start of the race. Most numerous in the crowd were the Ferrari fans; many dressed outrageously as shown here.
Next came the start. We had great seats for this. Hamilton was at the right front of the grid, Vettel front left. And off they go with much scrapping in the first turn as some wings and other components got knocked off as each jockeyed for position coming around the first corner with Hamilton and Vettel in the lead.
In this picture you can see Michael Schumacher on right exiting the pit lane as one of the Red Bull cars rounds the corner. Hamilton maintains the lead with Alanso in the red Ferrari just behind in second.