Sunday, 06 October 2013

Today marked the annual Korean Formula 1 Grand Prix.  The race began at 15.00pm with a colourful opening cermony kicking off at 2 p.m.  The opening parade, with participants dressed to the nines in traditional Korean ‘hanbok’ and ‘Samulnori’ clothing, showcased true Korean drama and legendary story-telling, through Korean dance.

The crowd was then treated to a daring display of fighter jet formations by the Korean Black Eagles flying squad.  Death-defying manouvers and colourful smoke creations (even a red heart with a blue arrow through it) kept everybody entertained.  The sound of the jet flying over us at close proximity was enough to give everybody a huge fright and a taste of the noisy car engines to come (although the fighter jet engine felt about a hundred times louder than the cars!)

The weather was surprisingly good, if just a little windy, despite ominous predictions earlier in the week of a typhoon touching down on Sunday.  Our seats were in Grandstand G this time, with a good view of the cars coming out of the first straight and then a view of turns 7,8,9 and 10, which is luckily where some of the action happened during the Formula 1 race.

We support Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) and Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) and this is the second year we have enjoyed great performances from both of these drivers at the Korean circuit.  Vettel came first (again), led every lap and also got the fastest lap of the race, much to the
disgust of some of the Italian Ferrari fans sitting nearby us; a
nd Raikkonen came in at second position by overtaking his teammate (Grosjean) late in the race.

The race was pretty exciting with blown out tyres, appreciative crowds drowned out by the deafening drone of the powerful Formula 1 car engines and even a dramatic fire, caused by a bump earlier in the race that must have ignited something.
Mark Webber was the unlucky driver whose car caught fire and he had to escape before flames engulfed it in a cloud of black smoke.
Incidentally, this happened right at the end of the straight where we could watch all the action live from our seats, with a little help from the big screen for the details.

A great outing as usual!