Melbourne Grandprix 2010

Melbourne Grand prix 2010

Things wouldn’t have got much better for the year 2010. I had watched Formula 1 Live in the year 2009 in Albert Park.

I had bought a grand stand ticket for this year. Senna Grand Stand ticket for all the 4 days. I should have booked the tickets earlier for the Schumacher stand. Schumacher stand would have been good to capture nice shots. I realised it after visiting the grand stand.

Thursday : No free practice session, there was qualifying session of V8 cars. Wanted to know where my seat would be so that I can get my camera gear based on the seating location.
To my disappointment it was in the 3rd row from the front. The barricade blocked the complete view. Right in front of the last turn, where the car would start to accelerate to achieve the maximum speed. So getting a good shot would be tough, until I would have a fixed aperture tele zoom lens. Nothing could be done, now.
Being Thursday there was very less crowd, I need to be in the senna stand itself.
I went to the last row of the grand stand to get a clear view, the view was clear it was at a far off distance.
Took some photos, the weather was not that promising for photography.


Friday: I missed the afternoon free practice session. The weather was good in the afternoon. Kubica was 1st during the 1st free practice session.

The crowd was less for Friday, during the 2nd practice session. Few cars were on the track. The weather was cloudy and there was a possibility of rain. I took some photos, but had reduced the ISO settings, the pictures looked dark. Changed the ISO settings and there were grains on the picture.
As expected typical Melbourne weather, heavens opened and rained for few mins. That was more than sufficient. Renault took the max advantage of the changing weather conditions and did max number of laps, which gave me an opportunity to capture some good shots. I was expecting a dry weather, so that I could capture all the 24 cars in high speed action.
Last 30 mins of free practice was much fun filled tricky weather. All the cars were on the circuit to get some practice. This was the best time to take some photos, I could go to the last row and avoid the barricade. At the end of the free practice session, I got some good photos.


Saturday: Final Free practice session was good, all the cars on the circuit to get used to the circuit.

Qualifying session started on time. The mclaren’s and Ferrari’s were the last one to come out of the pit lane. The only way to identify the driver is by the color of the helmet. The cars would easily do 180 kmph at the last corner and accelerate. I was lucky becoz of the fewer crowds. The cars would slow down to enter into pit lane. Crowd filled in as the time went by. I decided to go back to my seat, which was a good option, although I wouldn’t be able to capture good photo because of the barricade blocking to get a clear view. By the time camera would focus on the car, the car would have disappeared on the straight line.
There was racing of other cars other than Formula1 cars. Before every start of racing or qualifying session the safety was deployed. The medical car would be followed by Safety car. The track marshals would clean the circuit to clean up the sand, rubber and grass that would be left on the circuit, caused by the cars which went off track.

V8 Super Cars

Mini Cars

Ford Formula cars

Sunday: Race day.

All the grand stands were filled up, not even a seat was vacant. I was able to get the clear view of the drivers during the driver parade.

It started to drizzle before the start of the race. All the cars started with Intermediate tyres and did few laps before some pitted for dry tyres. Jenson Button was early to pit and change the tyres. With refuelling banned for this year, the tyre changes were done in 6-7 seconds. Webber pitted a lap later than vettel, he should have pitted earlier. Webber lost some track position due to pitting late for the change of tyres. Vettel was leading and a decent gap to Jenson, followed by Robert kubica. Vettel retired on lap 25th that allowed Jenson to lead the race. It was a fun filled Sunday race day. Only 14 cars finished on the race. There were incidents of cars taking each other on the race, which provided much entertainment to the crowds.