Race weekend begins...and it's the pits

Todd & pit lane lights

Thursday was the official start for us of Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix weekend...and it entailed no F1 cars going around the circuit.  As GP Advantage members (which we became by simply buying the ticket package we liked), we are entitled to some perks over the course of the weekend.  Thursday's perks were free breakfast (a sausage sizzle) and a pit walk.  A pit walk is the chance to walk through the pit lane and watch all the engineers assemble the cars that were flown to Aussie in pieces.  There were so many people - it was hard to see anything.  I decided to stay at the back and let Todd shove his way up to the fence to get all the good pictures.  He was in total heaven...and given that is the entire purpose of this trip, I was a happy camper.  Here are just a few of the pictures he took on pit walk.

Winners Podium

The mass of humanity

Scrutineering is apparently a very important part of Formula 1.  This is how you do it.

After pit walk, we walked around checking out a bit more of Albert Park.  Albert Park is a pretty big park in Melbourne that gets converted into the race circuit for the Grand Prix.  The ticket package that we got has us in different stands each day, so we started scoping out where our seats were going to be.  An F1 race is also an advertiser's dream way to reach men, so in addition to the boobalege popping out of the Monster (energy drink) girls' outfits, there's also cool stuff like L'Oreal.  They were giving facials and handing out free samples from their Menexpert line. Awesome!  Obviously, I got Todd in this line asap.

After our morning at Albert Park, the rain began, so we took the train to (apparently) the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere for the sole reason of going to The Gap which only just made it to Australia and hasn't yet made it to New Zealand.  I love me some Gap Body underwear and needed to replenish my stock.  How sad was I when we finally get there (having traveled from another Gap-less country) only to find they don't carry ladies underwear!!!  Grr, grr, grr.  Todd had no problem replenishing his stock, but I was at a loss.  Fail, Aussies.  Fail.

For dinner, we headed out to Wagamama based on Vanessa's recommendation.  Yumster.  On our way to and from Wagamama, we found more of Melbourne's graffiti filled laneways, and because I stupidly didn't have my camera, we returned this morning to take some pictures of some incredible street art.

 

 

 

Even the wheelie bins are part of the art scene

Reminds me of my Dunedin graffiti guy

This is enormous.

As is this one

and this one.

Todd decked out in Ferrari & pumas.

From art painted on walls, we went to see art hanging on walls at the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Victoria Australia.  This centre features all Australian artists and is located in Federation Square, a relatively new and exquisitely cool looking gathering place that hosts all types of culture, from art to music to food and more.  There's also a camera aimed at the plaza that projects onto a huge screen, so of course I had to take a picture of us on it.

If you look closely at this screen, Todd and I are in the bottom right.

Todd with his Fanvision gadget

Post-museums, we returned to Albert Park for two practice sessions.  Each lasted 90 minutes with a 2/5 hour break in between.  During the first practice session, we sat in our Friday seats, and during the second session, we roamed the grounds checking out all the viewing sections on this side of the track.

In between, we went to a cafe to warm up!  It was a cloudy day with a few bursts of rain here and there. Combined with a steady and cool wind, a couple cups of coffee were in order.  Todd took lots of pictures and a few FlipCam videos.  His blog report on the race with extensive pictures and videos will be coming soon.

Tomorrow, we're going to explore more of the city, meet up with Elena who arrived today for the weekend (she loves F1 too...weird), and return to Albert Park for one more practice session and the qualifying round.