Milan Day 3
9/14/2003 - It's Race Day!!! The day we had waited for was finally here!
Race day started out similar to the other 2 days - woke up early, shower, dressed, and headed down to the lobby to meet the group and get on the bus. Georgio was our driver for this 3rd day. I think he had had plenty of rest the night before, and he was there an hour early this time just to make sure that he didn't miss us :-)
As you can imagine, the traffic SUCKED. But we had left plenty of time to get to the track. Even so, once we got into Monza itself, traffic slowed to a virtual halt. It took us about an hour to move about 10 feet. I'm not exaggerating. At this point we noticed people abandoning their buses in droves. A couple of folks from our group opted to walk as well and insisted on being let off. We were only about a 15 minute walk from the entrance but we didn't know that at the time. It was hard to see with so much traffic. About a half hour later, Steve decided to go see what the hold up was. He found the entrance and had us get off the bus. As we were walking I noticed that not only had passengers abandoned their buses, but a number of buses also had no drivers. That might explain why things slowed down a bit :-)
We got through the entrance and still had about a half hour walk to the stands. The excitement was in the air - you could feel it. And the entire grounds, no matter where you looked, was a sea of red - everyone decked out in the Ferrari colours (myself and Tim included, of course!)
We got to our stand about 11:30am. About 2 and a half hours after we had left our hotel. The driver's parade had started at 11:15am however.
The Driver's Parade is something to see and experience at most of the tracks. In Montreal for example, they brought in antique austin healeys for the drivers to be driven in. Similarly at other circuits special cars are brought in to take the drivers around the circuit, there's music, flags, and of course the infamous "pit babes" - the 6-foot tall, slim, model-type girls in short skirts, high heels, and spandex tops carrying the flags. Seriously! You'll see pictures of the Monza pit babes below. In Monza however for the drivers parade they pile all the drivers onto the back of a flatbed truck and drive the truck around the circuit. It's not quite as big a deal. So we missed out on the driver's parade but we were ok with that.
We wandered around a little bit and then headed into the restaurant for lunch. Lunch on Race day was similar to Lunch the previous day. Except there was most definitely an added sense of urgency. They began serving on the stroke of noon, and the Formula1 Grid presentation was scheduled to start at 12:45. The Grid presentation is pretty cool to see - it's when all the cars come out of the pits, do their reconnaissance lap, and then go to their starting grid spot in the formation. All the team members for each car swarm around checking the car, getting everything ready, etc (see Grand Prix Day 2 for more details). The Grid presentation is scheduled to be over by 1:15 and then the race starts at 1:30.
So the waiters had a daunting task ahead of them - feed all of these people a 4 course meal (plus champagne before and coffee afterward) before 12:45. They were a little stressed. More than once I caught the head waiter glancing at his watch, staring around the room in panic, and barking orders to his waiterlings. Service, food, and wine was it's usual high level of excellence though. Nothing suffered from the accelerated pace, and all of us patrons just wanted to get through the meal quickly and get to our seats anyway so we didn't miss anything!
We finished up promptly at 12:45 and raced up to our seats (along with everyone else :-)). Not a moment too soon, for the pit babes were out - two per grid position - flags waving, in their tight red miniskirts, tops, and heels. Even I was impressed :-). A marching band was brought out to play what I can only assume was the Italian National Anthem. We were all standing, and the Italians in the stands were singing so I'm pretty sure that's what it was :-). IT was quite impressive. They marched in formation while playing, making all kinds of patterns on the track. Pretty cool, and they sounded great! Huge cheers erupted when they finished.
Around each car there was a beehive of activity. Swarms of red around the ferraris, buzzing blue activity around the BMWs, yellow clad technicians scurrying around the jordan cars, green around jaguar, etc. Racks of tires out on the track along with fuel pumps and tools and computers on wheels. Tuning and measuring and tracking and tweaking and debating ensued for about 15 minutes. Then, a mad rush to the gate at the side to get off the track (there are very strict rules governing when the team technical staff must get off the track and I believe your car is penalized if you fail to adhere to these rules). At this point the Pit Babes march out in single file with the nation flag of the driver or car they were representing, starting from the end of the grid and working their way up to the front of the grid. Quite a formal ceremony it was, the pit babe exit from the track, which seemed at odds with their outfits and the obvious purpose they served but impressive nonetheless!
Flags courtesy of
ITA's
Flags of All Countries
used with permission
Then the formation lap begins. The formation lap consists of all cars starting their engines, and when given the ok they take off at a measured pace and, staying in formation (no passing allowed unless under very very specific circumstances) they complete a lap around the track. At the end of the lap they drive back into their grid positions, engines running, and then the countdown to start begins.
If you haven't figured out by now given my vivid descriptions of the grid and what is happening in it as we watch, our seats were right at the start/finish line. In fact, to be more precise, our seats lined up directly with the pole position. The only people who had a better seat than us were the dignitaries to our left whose highly decorated viewing platform lined up directly with the checkered start/finish line itself. We couldn't have asked for better seats!
Next, the countdown winds down, the lights at the starting line go out and the race begins! And so does the real excitement!
Two cars didn't make it out of the grid at the start. One had to be rolled out of the way and back into the pits. The other eventually got going but ended up coming into the pits after his first lap.
It was taking about 1 minute and 22 seconds on average to complete a lap at Monza for this race. That's not the track record - I can't remember what it is.. I think it's around 1 minute, 20 seconds. They measure everything to the 1/1000 of a second - eg 1:20:124. Everything is very precise. No lap records were set at this Grand Prix, but a new F1 speed record for the track was set by Michael Schumacher - driving faster than 368 kmh on the pit straight! (Sorry... forgot myself for a moment. Or perhaps I should say, remembered myself for a moment :-) 368 kmh translates into over 228 mph :-))
It was actually a pretty close race for most of it. I won't give you the play-by-play. There are numerous web sites that document what happened and have great stories and photos, not the least of which is the Official Monza Web Site. Check it out if you are interested! I will say that for the first hour (race was over in about an hour and a half). it was pretty neck-and-neck between Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) and Juan Pablo Montoya (BMW). By the time there were just 10-15 laps left to go, however, Michael had a strong lead and unless something happened to his car or he made a mistake, he was the sure winner. And in fact that is what happened. Michael came in first, Montoya second, and Rubins Barachello, also Ferrari, came in 3rd.
Well you can imagine the pandemonium that erupted with Ferrari on the 1st and 3rd pedestals on the winner's podium!
Monza is one of the few places left where they open the track to the public after the race and you're actually allowed to walk on it. Montreal is another track and we actually did that. In fact I'm not sure if any place other than Monza and Montreal do it anymore. Both Tim and I knew this in advance and we had already asked Steve if it would be ok to have them wait for us while we walked the track after the race.
At about the same point that Michael established a clear lead, about 10-12 laps to go, the crowd started building in front of one of the gates that would be opened up onto the track. It was about 4 lines deep the first time Tim looked, and then a minute or two later, it had grown to about 12 lines deep, people shoulder to shoulder, the front line pressing up against the police barrier and the police straining to hold them back.
It was at this point that Tim and I looked at each other and decided that we were too chicken to try and face that crowd. We decided instead to sit back and watch. And I'm kinda glad we did because I've never seen anything like what happened next.
As soon as the race ended and the last car pulled into the pits, the police stood back, the gates were opened, and the crowd flooded the scene. It was like watching a huge tidal wave of red water breaking over the track - hordes and hordes of red-clad fans and flags of every nation, flowed out onto the track and started moving towards the elevated podium. People here and there would stop at the start/finish to kneel down and kiss it, momentarily interrupting the flow, which now looked like a fast flowing river about to crest its banks.
I believe the total attendance was 210,000. That's almost twice what we saw in Montreal. I don't think I've ever been in a crowd of 210,000 people. And I swear that at least half of them were on the track at this point.
As the drivers made their way out onto the podeum, the crowd erupted into cheers. I've never heard anything so loud. It was, as Tim says, pretty electric!
The awards ceremony proceeded, as did the obligatory champagne spraying, and at this point we made our way down to the restaurant to meet up with the rest of our group, grab a drink, and wait until the crowd had petered out enough for us to sanely make our way back to the bus.
What an experience!
I chose not to post many pictures here - just a few photos that will give you a bit of a flavour for how the day went. Tim has many more race day photos on his site if you want to check them out.
After the crowds thinned out at the track we made our way back to the bus. We had to find it - remember we left the bus in Monza outside the gates so we didn't know where it was going to park. According to Georgio it took about an hour and a half after we left to make it into the gate and to the bus parking lot! Glad we walked!
We eventually found the bus, and thanks to Georgio, who had the air conditioning at full blast, it was already nice and cool. I'm not sure if I mentioned yet, but the entire time that we were in Italy the temperature never dipped below 85 (most days it was around 90); never was there a cloud in the sky, nor was there ever a breeze. It was pretty hot, and it was also somewhat humid. And in a crowd of 210,000 people there's not a lot of opportunity to cool down.
Once we had everyone assembled we got on the bus and headed back to Milan. By now most of the buses had already left. It really wasn't terribly bad getting back into Milan. I think probably about an hour or so. Waiting out the worst of it in the restaurant definitely helped!
Tonight was our final night in Milan. Steve and Angie had made reservations at a family-run restaurant called L'Assassino which translated, is "The Murderer". I told you our restaurant names were going to be odd :-)
The food was absolutely fantastic - you're probably tired of hearing that by now. I can't emphasize enough how fantastic it was. We already miss it. So much, in fact, we've made reservations at our favourite Italian restaurant (Il Capretto D'oro - The Golden Goat), a mere week upon returning to Seattle. It's a wonderful restaurant and the closest we can get to Italy without climbing on another plane! But, as has become habit on this web site, I digress :-)
The food was wonderful, the wine was wonderful, the atmosphere was perfect, and the company was excellent! Tim and I really enjoyed the whole group. Everyone was so friendly, and very interesting, and we all got along well and had a lot of fun together. Not always the case when you throw 14 complete strangers from all across the continental US (and a couple from the UK for good measure) together for 4 days of intense (and scheduled) activity. But we couldn't have hooked up with a better group of people. I hope we keep in touch, and see them all again on future trips!
By now you know the dinner drill - wine, antipasti, wine, pasta, wine, meat or fish, wine, dessert, coffee. Same here. But I do have to make mention of the anti pasti course specifically. Rather than select from a menu, our waiter (I believe at the request of Steve) wheeled out this 2-decker cart full of the most amazing dishes, and he proceeded to select at random several samplings from multiple dishes for each of us as our anti pasti. All I had to tell the waiter was "no seafood" and I was presented with a plate that by itself could have been a complete meal. There were little meatballs, and steamed vegetables and salads (even a potato salad that was really great!) and tomatoes and mozzerella (the real stuff - from bufala - ahem - buffalo :-)) and a whole bunch of stuff. It was pretty impressive.
The ambience was perfect for our last night in Milan. It was filled with italian families and absolutely no tourists. Lots of jovial Italian chatter and laughter and even a singing of Happy Birthday in Italian, as we ate our meal. Here are a few pictures of our last supper in Milan
I was sad the Grand Prix was over (it went by so quickly) but Tim and I were also ready to move onto Rome, and Phase II of our Honeymoon - where it would just be the two of us :-)