And Hamilton Wins In Montreal!
Melbourne. Sepang. Shanghai. Sakhir. Montmelo. Monte Carlo. Montreal. 7 different cities, 7 different winners. What else could I be writing about other than the Formula 1 World Championship? Yesterday evening’s Canadian Grand Prix was one of the most thrilling races of the season so far.
I began writing this blog post before we’d reached the halfway mark of the race as it was so exciting – specifically on Lap 21 of 70 just after the three world champions of Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel overtook each other, made pitstops and changed tyres.
For those who are about to stop reading, as it so often claimed that F1 consists of cars driving around a circuit, in this race in particular you couldn’t be more wrong! Although I confess that not each race is as all-consuming as this one was.
All three drove into the pits within the space of 4 laps. Each pitstop at this particular circuit lasts approx. 14-15 secs from entering the pit lane to the exit which includes the 3-5 seconds it takes to change all four tyres. Under normal circumstances this would generally mean that the leaders should emerge one after the other all being well, also assuming that each driver makes the same amount of pit stops at around the same time. But when you have different pit strategies and different tyres, the leaders change at a rapid rate - especially considering that it takes at least a quarter of a lap for the new tyres to warm up to race temperature. All of this ensured that Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso switched track positions over the space of a few laps.
What drove me to at least begin this blog yesterday was the sheer volume of choices I had in which to watch the race. I won’t get into the whole BBC v’s Sky Sports F1 argument (actually, the full live race was only broadcast on SSF1 as part of the agreement). I’d been out during the day yesterday and stupidly forgot to check on the start time of the race, as I wasn’t sure if the time difference between Montreal and the UK was 5 or 7 hours. So I Googled it on my iPhone, the top paid search listing of which was the Sky Sports F1 channel. Easily clicked on the link which took me through to the website. Alternatively, I could have watched it on my phone but I thought I’d just about make it home in time.
But I didn’t. So when I began watching the race itself on Sky+ (I only purchased the Sports channels on Sky for the F1 channel) I had the option of pressing the red button which gave me the option of being closer to the action i.e. using ‘Race Control’ which is a ’multi-video option to put the viewer into the driving seat with on-board cameras, pit lane footage and in-race highlights’. To an F1 geek like myself, this sounded like manna from heaven! Unfortunately as I was watching it on Sky+, I wasn’t able to use the red button feature, so rather disappointing.
During the race I was tempted to read the live Twitter feed on various sports websites or on Twitter itself but I managed to resist. Video was being uploaded featuring driver interviews during the race but I was nervous about watching that simultaneously with the race as there was a time delay and I may find out something that was yet to happen thanks to my delayed start. I also had to turn off my Facebook alerts as I just knew that conversations would be taking place over the latest leader, who’d just set the fastest sector time of the race or why Hamilton anti-stalled towards the end of his pit stop.
All in all, I was rather impressed with the number of digital options available to me (a couple of which I didn’t know existed) - and all because I forgot to check what time the race began!
