Raining and raining and raining. Stayed at the van and watched Q2 and Q1 on Teev, finally the sun struggled through so we took ourselves to the big shops again and bought a small FM radio, and some lunch.
Caught the tram back down town and ensconced ourselves in our seat in the stand by 3:30. The RAAF Roulettes provided their aerobatic show in the bright red and white Pilatus PC9s, followed a little later by a QANTAS A380 doing some really low and slow flyovers.
The 'ancients', led by Alan Jones, son of the one of the original racing driver from 1953, Stan Jones, did a parade lap in cars from the era. They went the 'wrong way' as that's the way it was done in 1953.
Finally, the ubiquitous bimbos march out carrying a grid place flag each and take their positions. Then the first wave of mechanics roll out trolleys loaded with sets of tyres. The Toro Rosso in front of us had no fewer than three complete sets of tyres waiting on the grid. More mechanics, tool chests, engine starting guns, jacks and wheel nut rattle guns appear. Finally the cars are allowed out of pit-lane and do a single circuit, coming to rest at the back of the grid, where they are then pushed all the way up and into place. The National Anthem is sung. The grid starts to clear, led by the bimbos, leaving mostly just the mechanics who all shrink back to the safety walls. The cars blast off on their warm-up lap. The mechanics then run en-mass and choke the single exit. They have one minute and twenty seconds to clear the grid. Vettel appears, weaving back and forth, warming tyres and wasting time getting to his spot while everyone else closed in behind him. There they were, all settled into positions on the grid - and then they were gone - i must have blinked as i nearly missed it. The rest of the race is history as they say.
Took us two hours to get back to Coburg today having had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.
Dont forget to see all the snaps from the little box on the right----->
Daily snaps to prove it's all true:
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