Formula 1 Grand Prix

Budapest, Hungary

26th July 2009

I took a photo of Jenson Button driving in his Formula 1 car today. The shot took my camera 1/125th of a second to make. In that single moment, 4 of the 10 teams racing spent $32 each competing in Formula 1. Over the next lap, which was about 84 seconds long, they would each spend $336,134, or thereabouts, racing in a series they know they cannot win this season. Though hearing the cars start up and fly around the circuit helps make up for it.

I flew out to Hungary on Saturday morning to watch the Formula 1 race. I took a cheap Hungarian (or Polish, I'm not sure) Airline called Wizz Air (yes, like peeing) because it was cheap and most convenient for me. I was surprised not to see any other visible Formula 1 fans on the flight but instead, Lewis Hamilton's Dad! I was so shocked I didn't know what to do but I knew I had to do something. I grabbed the receipt for my race day ticket and went over to his seat and introduced myself. He kindly signed it and asked if I was going to see the grand prix in Budapest. I guess he gives so many autographs that he hardly looks at what he's writing on anymore. It's a shame, his son probably has 30 million quid in the bank and can't spare a couple to fly his Dad down privately. The least he could do is lend him his race car so he could get there in style quickly.

I thought going to a Grand Prix would be as stressful as flying Ryan Air multiplied by ten. In fact, it was the opposite. All the cabs in Budapest (that I saw, at least) had a flat-rate fair to the circuit. Food and Drinks are only moderately over-priced and this sport must have the friendliest and most laid back supporters I've ever seen (which is good since less than 1% of everyone there was visibly supporting Brawn, whom I'm a walking advertisement for).

The supporters were roughly made up of 45% Polish men, 45% Finnish families and 10% miscellaneous. Even if all the Finnish and Polish Drivers came in last place at every race, it's obvious: they are the ones selling the tickets. If it wasn't for the roar of the engines, you could have heard a mouse fart when Hamilton took the lead. During the parade lap, where the drivers get on a bus and drive around the track while being interviewed, Räikkönen said something in muttered Finnish and the crowd went insane!

But, the only reason I could justify the 800 quid I spent on this two day holiday: Listening to 19 Formula 1 cars start their engines. Holy shit, I've heard fighter jets fly over my head at the Paris Air Show, they were nothing compared to this! Even with ear plugs, you can feel the roar of the engines at your very core. Your backbone, lungs and stomach vibrate. Take your ear plugs out, even momentarily, means you'll liquidate your eardrums and be left with a splitting headache. Even when I went to the toilet, everything shook as they drove by. The four support series' racing cars that raced prior to the F1 race, though entertaining, didn't have engines that could stack up in terms of volume and shock value (they were only entertaining because they turned their races into demolition derbies and would continue racing with half their vehicle falling off the frame).

Most of the announcements were in Hungarian or German so you don't get the same depth of coverage you do watching F1 coverage on the BBC. They did have these portable computers where you could listen to commentary and see live footage but I doubt you'd here anything out of headphones with F1 cars cruising past.

The big surprise for me though is that you're allowed to run onto the race track after the race. They wouldn't let me come within 2 meters of the double fences topped with barbed wire during the support races but people were running around like a loony mob trying to see the drivers spray Champaign on one another on the podium. If I were a team principle who just spent $24,000,000 in the past 90 minutes loosing a race, I wouldn't want anyone near my property.

I said before that some teams spend loads of money competing and don't make much progress. Some people support drivers who hardly stand a chance of earning a few points in a season, let alone getting onto the podium on a regular basis. The driver I most support is Jenson Button and though he only finished 8th today, the rest of the race was a million miles away when I watched him do the business of driving around the track as fast as humanly possible. You can identify with some drivers more than others, some teams have a spirit that pulls you towards them. At the end of the day, winning isn't everything and competing in such an event is a blessing that I'm sure the 90,000 fans watching would love to trade with the 19 drivers who raced today.