Shut up. I'm talking.

I spent most of my life trying to become a Formula 1 driver but during the entire time that I pursued my dream I had never actually seen one live. Sure I had seen them on static display, I even sat in one, but I had never seen one moving.

Courtesy of F1 Grand Prix Tours, that all changed last week when my brother Marc, my friend Werner, and I took a trip to Brazil to watch the second last round of one of the most closely fought championships of all time.

Getting there

The trip to Sao Paulo was reasonably painless. We left on Thursday morning and arrived that evening. Unfortunately the SAA crew was quite grumpy which meant service on the plane was a bit unpleasant but it was a small price to pay for a free trip :)

Once we landed we were immediately shipped to our hotel. On the way there we discovered what an incredibly MASSIVE city Sao Paulo was. I have been to New York and London and seen many a sky scraper, but not on this scale. They were everywhere. It was a huge eye opener.

What also blew our minds was the amount of poverty in Sao Paulo. There is a lot of poverty in South Africa but it feels a lot more concentrated there and with a population of 19 million people living in tight quarters it strikes you head on.

Friday was for exploring

On Friday there was F1 practice on but we didn’t have tickets to go see it. So we took the chance to venture out into the wilderness.

We went to one shopping center which seemed to have been built for billionaires. Every shop there was a particular brand from Tiffany’s to Louboutin and Giorgio Armani. It made you feel very poor very quickly. The contrast of the shops compared to life outside of that center was staggering.

We decided to skip that one and head over to a street called Oscar Freire. It is one very long street with a whole bunch of shops running either side of it. Almost exactly like Long Street in Cape Town but without all the clubs.

When we left South Africa I was sick from the Yellow Fever vaccination. During our Friday walk about I had about 0.1% energy. The result was I was left a bit under whelmed by the ‘shopping experience’ and was happy to get home that evening. All I wanted to do was watch F1 cars.

My first time

Come Saturday and I must have been the first person on Earth to be awake. I could not contain my excitement.

We arrived at the track at 9am and had to wait till 11am for Practice 3. It was wet and I was a bit stressed that some of the top drivers wouldn’t venture out because they generally consider wet testing a waste of time.

Luckily that wasn’t the case. Many of the drivers came out almost straight away.

The track in Brazil is like a bowl so you get a pretty good view of most of it. We probably had the best seats in the house. We sat at Turn 1 which gave us a view of the main straight, the pits, Turn 2, 3, the back straight and Turn 4.

When the first bunch of cars came out I truly got shivers down my spine. The. Sound. Is. Incredible. I am not lying to you when I say that they are so loud that it literally shakes you to the bone.

I was in heaven. It was everything I had imagined plus a thousand. The acceleration, the breaking, the noise, and the skill the drivers have is just so awesome to experience.

When one car passes you the sound is barely manageable. When two pass at once, your body is shaken to the core and you can’t hear a word you are saying let alone what your friend may be saying. When there are three or more your ears will start to bleed. Luckily they give you earplugs.

The first hour of practiced passed incredibly quickly. All three of us are some of the biggest F1 fans you will ever find and we were 100% completely and entirely transfixed. No words were spoken between us, we just tried to take it all in.

By the end of the day we were all pretty much exhausted. The next day was the big one and we had to be at the track early to claim our seats, so we hit the sack early in anticipation for Race day.

Race Day

The key to this race is not just that it’s near the end of the season but that is also home to some of the most passionate fans out there. This race is probably second to Monza Italy when it comes to the vibe and enthusiasm that you can experience at an F1 race.

When we arrived at 8am on Sunday most of the grand stand was already packed. There were tones of Ferrari supporters as well as people getting the crowds pumped with musical instruments, dancing, shouting and teasing. A highlight of the build up to the race was a bunch of highly energetic guys sitting a row in front of us. They had drums, trumpets and guitars and they were going absolutely crazy. They had about 90% of the 5000 strong people in our grand stand cheering.

As we got closer to the race the tensions started to rise. Brazil is Felipe Massa’s country and they made sure you knew about it. If you supported his team mate, Fernando Alonso (Spanish bro) then you best kept quiet (which we did) because wow the crowd went mad if you didn’t! In one funny incident an Alonso supporter climbed up the scaffolding of the stand with a Spanish flag and was shouting “Fuck Massa! Go Alonsoooooo!” everyone went crazy! They threw everything they had at this guy and he just didn’t stop. The music was going flat out while people were chanting “Massa! Massa! Massa! Massa!” It was just so much awesome and is just impossible to describe. Definitely one of those ‘you have to be there’ moments, but at least I tried.

2pm arrived before we knew it. As soon as the warm up lap started the crowd went dead silent, it was time to get down to business. Remember earlier when I said 3 F1 cars is ear bleed stuff? Well try 24 all at once. It is impossible to explain.

The start was awesome and as the race settled down we got comfortable and kept our eyes firmly on the race, none of us moved the entire time. Luckily there were TV’s all around our stand, so we could watch the live coverage and the live action. We witnessed lots of overtaking and the only crash of the race. It was a special day. We thought it couldn’t get better.

But it did.

Can I have your autograph?

On Monday we were due to go to the airport at 2pm in order to catch a 6.30pm flight. Much to our horror we discovered that our flight had been delayed by 8 hours. EIGHT.

We were devastated as we had already checked out of our rooms and therefore had to sit around and wait till our 10pm trip to the airport. We killed time by doing absolutely nothing.

When we got to the airport we went straight to the check-in counters and while in the queue I saw none other than THE Fernando Alonso cruise passed us. I was the only one who noticed so when I told my mates they all thought I was talking crap.

By the time we got our tickets it was 12am so we went through to our terminal and that is when it turned into quite a surreal experience. Not only was Fernando Alonso there but also Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica, Nico Hulkenberg, David Coulthard and the legendary commentator Martin Brundle! Un-fucking-believable.

To get a ticket to walk through the pits you need to pay R35,000 (about $5000), yet here were most of the F1’s finest just chilling right next to us waiting to get on the next flight! Turns out our delay happened for a reason.

We got the chance to chat to Rosberg (who is actually quite a cool guy), pics of Kubica, Alonso and Massa.

Alonso was definitely the most popular of the bunch, when we spotted him and said “Oh my there is Alonso”, he got mobbed by tones of people. He cannot live a normal life.

Meeting some of the drivers was a perfect and completely unexpected way to end our trip. To stand next to those legends and have a chat was ‘slap me awake’ stuff. I will never ever ever forget that experience and I will probably tell everyone I know about it :P

Huge thanks to Car and F1 Grand Prix Tours for an extra special experience. This was our first experience of F1 and I can guarantee you that it won’t be our last. We are already planning our next trip.