Ok, so I went on Sunday. I did the full touristy spectrum of things, just to see. I live here, but just wanted to see what they had on offer. I waited almost an hour for a driver autograph session, my first ever. Entertaining to see these guys just being regular dudes, yet very approachable. Buemi signed my hand because I asked him to. Vergne appeared half asleep but that is just his regular demeanor, I guess. Piquet jr. was tossing around a little mascot bear. I asked him about it, he said it was "an unlucky charm" The two Felixs' were having a giggle about something on Da Costa's phone. I guess this is old hat for them and they just park themselves for the allotted time.
I also waited a good half hour to get into a playseat with Fanatec wheel/pedal combo configured for the Montreal circuit. A playseat is now pretty high on my wishlist, although I do not know if the cars are modeled at around 2 tonnes, but the brake distance was horrific. (I just did some homework and if my data is correct, the minimum weight including driver is 888kg, which is .8 of a metric tonne) No brake markers evident on the sim, so I hit the anchors very early and full depression (to the point of bending the seat back a bit) still had me going well past the apex and into the runoff, with no lockup. A lot of ambient noise made it difficult to hear the sim, if any audio was being output at all. I got out half way through the second lap, because no point in wasting time on a car that was basically undriveable. Very laggy steering response as well. Great gear, though.
Walking around the circuit itself felt very much like a club race atmosphere, nothing like the energy felt at the F1 event. Free to walk around, I think I covered probably 75% of the circuit periphery. Easy to just walk up to the fence, and then another safety fence about 5 feet beyond that, which was right at the track. Seemed a little excessive, but I guess they need to keep some distance for spectators.
I did not bother with qualifying, but headed to the front row at turn 5 for my assigned seat for the race itself. Looking straight at a monitor helped a bit, although lcd monitors have difficulty in direct sun. It was hot. 70 feet to the right of the monitor was the apex and then here came the cars. And there they went. 37 times. Imagine a really big RC car and you're pretty close. "Reeeeeeee" Add some differential whine. Also throw in some tea tray clattering from time to time and you've got it. Liveries are brighter than what you see in TV coverage, especially the Mahindra red. Cars appear to displace a lot of air, judging by the noise on the straights, despite quite low wing angles. It may just be the weight.
Overall it was a good experience and I'm glad I went. I saw Jean Todt. I saw Webbers' 2016 LeMans Porsche, and as promised in my earlier post, I did a headcount. There were at least 100 people there, maybe more but they were moving around. Difficult to tell
As is usually the case with these things, TV coverage is better, but that could change. It would be neat to see this event at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for example. Time will tell.
I shot a boatload of video and pics, but I have no idea where to post it in the Racetube, or if anybody wants to see it. Let me know.
