Down in Pit Lane Park

I have to admit, I'm not a Formula 1 racing fan. I was interested in it at one point in time, when it first started in in Malaysia. I was rather excited at that time, having the wildest hope that some how Sauber Petronas would win a race on its home turf. My hopes were dashed when I quickly learnt that F1 races was guaranteed to be won by Michael Schumacher.

F1 has grown to be a one man sport in my mind. Still, I took up the opportunity to head on down to Sepang for a chance to get a look at the workings behind the big race. The tri p was sponsored by AMD, so it was fortunate that they were generous enough to have shuttle vans to pick us up from KL Sentral.

The Seapang F1 Circuit's Grand Stand in the distance

Something you don't see every day. I got a chance to enter the paddock area with a few other journalist.

Going into the Pit

The drive to Sepang lasted roughly about an hour. Our Canadian driver, Derick was a chatty fellow you told us that he has been to nearly all the Formula One races for the past 6 years. Apparently, he and other drivers like him are sourced out to help ferry guests to and fro race events. Derick certainly is a busy man.

The road to the Paddocks was a relatively straight one, we were stopped by 2 security check points before being finally shown to the Paddock area. Inside we were guided by an Italian woman by the name of Lara Rodini, an F1 program manager. As she was showing us around the docks, I caught a glimpse of BWM Sauber driver Nick Hiefield.

These suits will see plenty of action this coming Sunday

Tires for a driver

Team Ferari hard at work fine tuning their cars

The pit area is full of activity

Whole sets of tires to be used on race day

We were taken on a short tour of the Ferari F1 garage seeing the various engineers at work, fine tuning the cars. Later we had a little briefing session with Dieter Gundel, Ferrari's Head of Race Track Electronics. He basically briefed us on the inner workings of F1 cars and how technology played an important role in F1 racing.

Dieter Gundel explaining the workings of F1 racing to us.

Lunch was provided by Ferari ( actually I suspect it is the Sepang F1 Curcuit people who were behind it). Oddly enough, we had Italian (coincidental since Ferari is an Italian team). The food was acceptable though it wasn't delivered as fast as we hoped it would've (hey, we are talking about an F1 team. Changing tires and spurting spaghetti can't be too difficult).

Ferari serves up lunch!!

The pass we had to wear into the paddock area.

Another quick look around the Pit Lane area for some photos and we were off back to KL. the weather was sizzling hot at the time when we left. I can't imagine sitting in a thick fire-proof suit and driving under the blazing hot sun this coming Sunday. Still, I can't imagine myself sitting in for the race either especially in this kind of weather.

Things started to get heated up in the late part of the afternoon.

This was the only F1 car (intact) that we saw while we were there.

Me standing infront of the Ferari pit area.

The track is no place to be on a hot sunny afternoon

Well that's it for Sepang

Don't forget to catch racing action in the coming days.