Singapore F1 GP

The Singapore F1 GP, in recent years, has played a significant part in my life, causing major arterial roads and pedestrian walkways to be blocked and in turn substantially increasing my travelling time to work. I take this opportunity to thank my very understanding bosses, who despite being leading insurance professionals, often allow me a very liberal interpretation of the term force majeure.

But that is not why I make this post. Due to improved macro-economic factors as well as improved fiscal discipline, I decided this year to -ahem- splurge on two Walkabout tickets for the F1 Practice Session, seeing that it was my best friend's birthday as well.

In fact, it was all a very fortuitous chain of events which made that possible - a sudden intuitive urge to check the Singapore GP website for any last minute tickets (even though tickets had officially sold out days ago, plus the fact that I was on leave, meant that I had both the opportunity and time to queue for 2 hours at Raffles City in order to get last minute tickets.

So after a simple dinner, we were all set - and prepared - to take on the world's fastest land-based machines...






The anticipation in the air was tangible and although the crowds, and the fact that our ticket passes were the lowest in the hierarchy, meant that we could not get a clear view of the cars, the atmosphere and surrounding scenery more than justified the ticket price.

There was of course no lack of memorabilia being sold at more than a slight mark-up...




Sideshows and exhibits to keep the throngs happy, like this vintage car collection...





And high-tech contraptions, like this giant screen, to ensure unaggresive and/or short people would not miss any of the action...




But for me, just being able to walk in the centre of the normally busy Esplanade Bridge underneath a clear sky with the stunningly lit-up Marina Bay Sands as a back-drop was enough to take the cake.



With that in mind, I was thus a little amused when my friend insisted on spending the majority of the night trying to take pictures of the cars speeding down the track with her pint-sized digital camera.






I cannot but chuckle when I see how most of her shots turned out...





I mean, why try so hard to catch what would surely, if you are lucky, turn out to be fuzzy blobs when you can watch that in luxury at home or download far sharper pictures on the internet. Shouldn't and wouldn't our time be better spent soaking in the atmosphere - and taking pictures like this?...



Enough said...