Brazilian GP, Interlagos, Sao Paulo

The bus from Paraty arrived into Sao Paulo fairly late at night.  I could already appreciate the size of the city; the bus had been on various motorways for quite some time before it reached the bus station.  I though the M25 had a lot of lanes, at times the motorway had three sets of three lane carriageways, and that was just one direction!

As soon as we arrived at our hostel, O de Casa, I checked my phone and saw that I had text from Paul (Gladman).  Advising me that Steve had left tickets on the door for tonight's gig. What?!?! I thought the gig was tomorrow night.

Let me rewind a little...  Steve, a good friend of Paul's, and with whom I had the pleasure of enjoying a drunken night in Soho, runs the F1 Rocks music concert.  I had emailed Steve a few days earlier to see if we could still take him up on his offer of tickets to the gig.  I had assumed the show was on the Friday or Saturday night.

Nilgun had just professed how tired she was and that the bed looked good.  As soon as I read the text out she was digging through her backpack for a dress and heels.  Good girl!  So we changed as quickly as possible and caught a taxi over to the venue.  Sao Paulo is massive, fortunately we were not too far away, 15 minute taxi ride.

Once we got to the door we realised it wasn't quite like a gig at the Brixton Academy: girls in tiny dresses with massive heels, brazilian guys looking good in sophisticated threads, a red carpet with gorgeous Pirelli models lining the entrance.  We rocked up to the guest list line and the security guards clearly did not take us seriously - it was probably because I still had my flip-flops on!  Once inside we realised how we were beyond fashionably late.  The first head line act, Macy Gray, had finished but the other, Jessie J, had just started.  We caught most of her set and sunk a few Brahmas in celebration.  After the show had finished we milled around outside soaking up the atmosphere, bought a beer and hot dogs from a street vendor, and discussed the merits of the various Brazilian F1 drivers with said street vendor.  Wicked first night in Sao Paulo.

The guide books often don't have too many positive comments regarding Sao Paulo but from what we had seen last night and on our first day it looked okay to us, much like any other big city, and it was pretty clean and tidy.

I had booked our hostel, months ago, based on the proximity to the metro line which ran direct to Interlagos.  This worked out so well as it was a little over an hour from hostel to circuit.  The journey was easy, apart from having to pinch your nose when the doors of the overground train opened - it ran parallel with a river that stunk like a sewage works.

We arrived just in time for the beginning of free practice 1.  The grandstand we were in was mostly empty but the Brazilians that were there were already on the beers!  There were big cheers for the first couple of cars coming out of the pit lane and then bigger cheers for the Brazilian drivers Felipe Massa, Rubens Barichelllo and Bruno Senna.

Our tickets were for grandstand G, located along the back straight between turns 3 and 4.  Tickets for any Grand Prix are expensive, typically £300-400 for a weekend ticket, but tickets for some of the grandstands at Interlagos are     over £1000 (and no, that is not VIP).  For example, a seat in the grandstand overlooking the famous Senna S are about £1200.  When buying our tickets earlier in the year the ticketing websites advised that tourists should buy tickets for grandstand A as this is safer, grandstand A is at the beginning of the main start/finish straight, and to avoid grandstand G as it is uncovered, all locals and rowdy.  By the time we attempted to buy tickets grandstand A had sold out, so the only other affordable option was G.

We really enjoyed watching the F1 cars in FP1 and FP2.  As the grandstand was only 20% full we could move around and watch from different vantage points; nearest to turn 3 we could watch the drivers doing practice starts, at the other end watch in awe at the ridiculously short braking zones for the slow turn 4.  I found that taking photos of F1 cars travelling at nearly 200mph is very tricky!

After FP2 we headed downtown in search of an electronics mall, which we had been recommended.  Nilgun's Canon Ixus had stopped focussing and we were desperate to get it fixed because this camera was essential to our underwater pictures (we have a special housing for it).  We found the recommended shop within the mall and left the camera for investigation.  Nilgun's iPhone 3GS was also out of action after the screen was completely shattered.  The camera guys wanted double the going rate in London to fix the screen so we went in search of a better deal (big mistake).  We found another shop that would do it for less and told us to return in an 30 minutes.

When we returned things did not look good, the guy who could speak English looked really guilty.  They showed us the phone; the glass was fixed but the screen underneath was fried.  In the process of fixing the glass they had broken the screen and now wanted more money to fix it.  You gotta be kidding!  Long story short; we had to return to tomorrow when they said it would be fixed.  So that Nilgun could still have a phone they lent us an old iPhone 3G.

After such a fantastic first day at Interlagos this put a real downer on our spirits.

Another early start to get the track in time to watch FP3. This time the grandstand was much busier, but by arriving early meant we secured a good spot (although every ticket has a seat number it means nothing).  By the time it reached qualifying the grandstand was full.

The crowd was very rowdy, much more than I ever expected.  The crowd was 98% male and everyone was on the beers, big time!  Whenever a woman passed by the crowd would go mad, jeering and shouting.  I have no idea what was being said but I got the impression it more about winding up the guy who was with the girl.  It seemed that for the majority of the crowd this was far greater entertainment than what was happening on track.

Normally, Nilgun and I love qualifying.  Particularly Q3 when we are willing anyone to take pole except Vettel.  But at Interlagos there was no screen so we resorted to peering over shoulders of those who had the live timings on their iPhone or tablet.  It was frustrating not having Martin Brundle and DC keeping us up to speed.  We ended up leaving before Q3 finished to beat the crowd.

We returned to the electronics mall hoping for good news about the camera and iPhone.  The former was good news although expensive.  The latter was not.  This time the guys had fitted an entirely new screen but now they had broken the backlight.  They thought this was acceptable but we did not.  We left them again with the understanding that they would try and have it fixed for Monday.  I could tell that they didn't have much optimism for fixing the backlight so we had no intention of returning on Monday.  We had the working iPhone they had lent us, albeit a much inferior phone.  We felt a bit bad but we had given them a working phone in good faith that they would fix it.  Anyway, we flew out Monday morning so going back was not an option.

I had read online that you need to get to the track early on race day if you want a good seat.  Gates opened at 7am and we arrived at 8am.  The race didn't start until 3pm so we were anticipating some very numb bums!  Despite getting there early there was a huge queue for the gates.  Many of the locals were on the beers and already half cut!

We got some decent seats as near to turn 4 as possible.  The DRS zone was on the back straight so we were hoping for some overtaking action.  Interlagos is a natural amphitheatre so, as long as you are high enough, you can get a good view of most of the infield section of the of the track.

For the entire build up to the Grand Prix, everyone had been expecting a wet weekend.  We bought ponchos on Friday and took our rain coats on both Saturday and Sunday.  weather.com had forecasted 100% chance of precipitation from 10am through to 5pm, we were expected to get very, very wet.  But, the rain never materialised.  This clealy compromised some drivers' race as they had set their cars up also expecting rain.

The boisterousness of the crowd was turned up to 11 on race day.  Nilgun had chosen to wear trousers and the least revealing top to reduce attention, this didn't really work. Although she figured out making a dash for the loos when attention was diverted to another girl worked well!  The best way to describe the crowd would be tens of thousand of men on a stag weekend mixed with the chanting and songs from a football match.

Speaking of football, something that tickled me was some Argentinians who were brave enough to parade in front of the grandstand with a banner saying "Messi is better than Peli".  For this they received flying pints, food and anything the Brazilian's could lay their hands on as a projectile.

The race itself wasn't one of Interlagos' finest.  Vettel did his usual trick of stomping away on the first lap and acheiving the required one second window to Webber.  The Red Bull's opened a huge gap to the rest of the field, so Button and Hamilton (who we were obviously supporting) were racing for position rather than the win.  Hamilton got caught up with Massa through the pit stops.  Massa was rewarded with huge cheers from the crowd for every lap he held at bay the aggresive Hamilton, this continued until Hamilton retired directly in front of us triggering huge applause and much swearing directed at Lewis.  When Button finally caught Alonso and overtook him using DRS we went wild, pretty much the only ones in our area of the grandstand!

The Brazilian Grand Prix was such an amazing experience, so different to both Korea and Silverstone.  I'm really glad we went and experienced first hand the Brazilian's passion for F1.  But, Silverstone is still my favourite and I can't wait to go again.  But that won't be until 2013.