Romain Grosjean, Haas, Circuit of the Americas, 2018

Paddock Diary: United States Grand Prix day three

2018 United States Grand Prix

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Formula 1 teams held another clandestine meeting without Liberty Media on Saturday, while Fernando Alonso was told he couldn’t use a special helmet camera. Here’s the inside line from the F1 paddock at the Circuit of the Americas.

4am

Up and about as usual, catch up on emails, read the latest Economist plus various other e-zines that arrived since I departed home on Wednesday. Given the late start to the day – FP3 at 1pm local time and qualifying three hours later – I don’t plan on leaving for COTA before 9am, which allows time for breakfast and shopping at San Marcos Outlet Centres, midway between my digs and the track.

9am

Leave Forrest Bond’s place, breakfast at Dennys – a couple of fried eggs, toast, bacon rashers, and coffee. Then I hit the outlet shops, mainly seeking stuff for my wife Gabi, plus some polo shirts if they grab my fancy. The plan is to take pics of potential goodies, then send these for approval and possible purchase next week before I depart for Mexico.

10:45am

Depart San Marcos for circuit, arriving 30 minutes later. As the media shuttle passes under the track subway I catch a glimpse of ‘my’ McLaren 720S on a Hot Lap on the giant screens. I’ve been chauffeured around many F1 circuits over the years but always in the dry – until Thursday, and I’m really pleased I had a ‘wet’ experience.

Here’s my lap with McLaren’s simulator driver and Esports champion Rudy van Buren:

11:30am

Head for a meeting at Mercedes to discuss upcoming interviews and features. While waiting, I note all team bosses traipsing through; clearly they’ve followed up on their Japan summit – and I make a note to investigate.

After my chat with Mercedes Head of Communications Bradley Lord, Ian from team sponsor Bose comes across as we finish, and kindly presents me with a gift: the company’s latest product, namely Sleep Buds. These are effectively noise-cancelling ear plugs that block out sound while flying. I can’t wait to use them on the overnight flight back from Mexico.

Noon

Wander through the paddock in search of team boss meeting info, and bump into former Ferrari/McLaren driver Stefan Johansson, who now lives in the USA, where he built a solid sports car career before turning his mind to driver management and a watch company.

Then a pleasant surprise: Paul Hembery, formerly Pirelli motorsport director and now responsible for the company’s Latin American operation, comes across and we catch up. Although we’ve stayed in touch since Paul, whom I respect enormously, left F1, I haven’t seen him for about a year, so it’s great to catch up. We do, believe me…

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1pm

FP3 starts, two hours later than “usual”, so I reflect on the number of time shifts we’ve had since the FIA and Liberty Media agreed to “flexible timetables”. Changes have usually been made for the right reasons, such as local conditions or to prevent clashes with such other major sporting events such as World Cup play-offs.

However, this shift is for totally wrong reasons, namely tonight’s Bruno Mars/Britney Spears gigs. The thinking behind the shift is that later qualifying slots could persuade the audience to arrive early for the concert, then hope they are sufficiently impressed by F1’s spectacle to purchase tickets to cover the race on Sunday.

The downside is, though, that qualifying happens at 11pm in Europe (10pm in UK) rather than, say, 7 or 8pm. Thus COTA has effectively sacrificed large swathes of TV audiences in favour of handful of potential punters. One wonders whether F1 has gotten its priorities screwy.

2pm

Chicken Caesar salad in the media canteen. Over the meal I chat to a German tabloid colleague, and we agree Sebastian Vettel could soon be considering retirement, particularly if Lewis Hamilton wins a fifth titles and Ferrari’s overall performance does not improve markedly.

Rather than grab a brownie for dessert I head for Williams, where Magnum ice creams are normally available thanks to sponsor Unilever. While polishing off the vanilla bar-on-a-stick I get chatting about music festivals such as the recent Austin City Limits to veteran press office Ann Bradshaw and her partner Sam, a classically trained cellist. It’s truly amazing what interesting folk one finds in the F1 paddock.

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5pm

Qualifying over I hit the interview trail: Toro Rosso twins, then Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull before I wander off to McLaren’s Meet the Team, where I take Fernando Alonso by surprise when I ask him to comment on his (allegedly) secret helmet fitted with eye-level camera, which he’d hoped to trial in Austin.

I finish my day at Williams with drivers Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin, and technical honcho Paddy Lowe. Unfortunately I don’t get the chance to catch up with Romain Grosjean and admire his terrific US-themed racing boots.

8pm

Day done, I pack up, hoping to arrive in New Braunfels within the hour. It’s not to be: I get invited to a meeting to discuss various of the days’s happenings, so eventually leave shortly after 9pm.

10pm

I’m in bed, ready for an early alarm call tomorrow to enable me to stick (roughly) to my early night/early morning regime.

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2018 United States Grand Prix

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10 comments on “Paddock Diary: United States Grand Prix day three”

  1. ”However, this shift is for totally wrong reasons, namely tonight’s Bruno Mars/Britney Spears gigs.”
    – I couldn’t agree more with you. I wish the Saturday sessions would be brought forward back to their traditional start times (10 am and 1 pm respectively like they used to be) or at the very least an hour back towards the traditional start times.

  2. Thanks, nice read as usual.

    I agree with the unnecessary change in qualifying schedule: quali started at midnight here in Finland/eastern part of Europe, and I decided to head for bed during Q1.

    1. I had to head to bed before Q3 – midnight pole combined with having a half-marathon the next day did not seem like a good pairing. (For anyone wondering, the race went badly after a track invasion caused me to need 15 minutes to do the last 100 metres).

  3. I want to take the counter-point to the schedule change as I am an American F1 fan and live further south of COTA in San Antonio. Right or wrong, I think everyone inside the paddock wants F1 to prosper in the US. Last year, it was Taylor Swift who was the main attraction to the race, not the cars or drivers. While I don’t particularly like the musical acts on race weekends but I get it’s necessary to bring potential race fans to the USGP via concerts. Throughout the season, most of the races are broadcast here very early in the morning(especially on the US west coast) or late at night regardless of venue. I and many others deal with time as best we can-thank you for DVR’s-but we all understand the earth is round and time is linear. So if there’s a 2-hour time shift to accommodate that will keep 60k at the track a little for a concert, I’m fine with that because if some of them become F1 fans, all the better. Britney Spears plays the post-race concert on Sunday. This race and Mexico are the only races we get free over the air in the US, everything else requires a cable or satellite subscription.

    1. I see your point but would love to know – do the concert goers actually turn up in time for qualifying and watch it or do they just turn up in time for the concert?

      If it truly is bringing a large number of people to experience F1 live, it’s probably a benefit, but if they’re not seeing it/impressed by F1, it’s not worth doing.

      Singapore, being a night race suits concerts but even there I noticed a lot of people only arriving at the end of qualifying, or part way through and going straight to the concert area, so it doesn’t seem all that effective in gathering new fans.

      1. @dbradock Given that promoters can really only make money from ticket sales, they probably don’t care whether the ticket sales are for the race or the concert – so long they can maximise ticket sales (which, if we want our favourite venues to continue operating, they must).

    2. @photogcw I think it would work better if the sessions bracketed the concerts, because then getting in early means seeing FP3, leaving late means seeing qualifying, and considering doing both means the perennial problem of how to entertain oneself between the two sessions is easily solved.

  4. Agree. Qualy was way tooo late for us folk in Europe.

  5. Complaints about it not being convenient to watch depress me. It’s simple – like it, watch it. Don’t care, don’t bother.

    Whining makes you seem . . . whiney.

  6. Miss the foodie-fotos… but like the diary.

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