Some small scenery photos on the small road in the countryside~
The grass and trees here were really well maintained.
Water, trees and roads were the topics I liked most when I was playing C:S. The sky this day was not blue enough, which led to overexposure.
People living here must have a lot of free time.
Do not ask why it was so red in the distance, because it was now five o'clock in the morning.
Grand Prix du Canada 2022
I was still looking for weekend tickets the day before the race took place (please never use stubhub/viagogo). I was really scammed by the price.
The ticket was just a pdf file.
Saturday. It rained all day today in Montreal. I had something to do after a month and a half: I decided to watch F1 in Canada for the first time this weekend.
There were F1 fans wearing merchandise everywhere in the downtown this morning. This should be the largest event since the pandemic began in the past few years.
All items were very expensive.
It was recommended by the officials to take the metro. The metro on this day was very very congested. Every ten meters in the station, one could see a police officer maintaining order.
After a long time of people squeezing people, we finally came out of the metro station.
I used to mention this place in my blog.
Crossing a bridge was required to enter the venue.
It seemed that the staff at the venue did not carefully check the tickets. After scanning the QR code with the machine, they did not wait for the response (still spinning) before scanning the next one.
I heard lots of sound by race cars. It was the race before F1 (I think it was Ferrari Challenge North America). The lowkey rumbling sound could not come from today's F1.
The venue had some walls for taking photos.
Very quickly we found our seats.
The back of the grandstand was very shabby... The row of washrooms were a bit surprising but also in line with the expectations.
It was still raining.
I needed to show my ticket and my seat assignment to the staff before I could get on the grandstand. I was going to wear the hat I bought for 90 dollars on the spot.
That 90 dollars made feel a little bit painful.
Getting on the grandstand, we waited for the start of the third practice session.
We skipped Friday's part because we had to work.
The "small" screen on the right of the picture showed similar things as TV streaming. It showed information of various track sectors and drivers.
Before the start of the practice session, I saw a bulldozer sweeping the track.
The safety car for this race was Aston.
A guy next to me put a Ukrainian flag on the grandstand. I wonder if he appeared on TV.
Without a video, it was hard to show the features of race cars: speed and sounds.
However the sound sounded they were tractors. And the cars had to slow down in the corners.
What's worse was that I could not see the screen in front of me and the words inside. Even worse, the sources of this screen and the TV were different. The left side of the screen did not show the corresponding times for the drivers' leaderboard.
The signal in the venue was so bad that I could not refresh anything on the F1 app.
After the end of FP3, we got wet. I planned to walk around the venue before the next session.
There was a small pond in the middle of the track.
What's next to it was a TV wall that looked like it was there just because something needed to be there.
Originally there was nothing to say about this, but I saw the command line window behind the image. My profession drove me.
Then we went to the opposite side of the pit area.
Many people were squeezing themselves in behind the barrier to watch something. What were they watching?
After waiting for a while, I squeezed to the very front. In fact, there were classic cars cruising around in the intervals of sessions.
I forgot what this was.
Time to go to the qualifying session, we went back to the grandstand.
The qualifying started when the rain had not stopped yet.
I should cherish the opportunity now when the cars were going slow under the grandstand and it was very easy to take photos of them.
Albon crashed into the wall right in front of us. This was worth the ticket price.
The driver did not get hurt or cause any damage to the car. He successfully reversed back to the track and received a round of applause from the audience.
The race was still going on while the rain was slowly stopping.
The sun was out. The qualifying was over.
When editing this post, I only remembered that Zhou got his best qualifying result.
Also, Alonso got a front row start.
After the race was over, this car came out to do a parade; I didn't know what for.
Time to go.
On our way back, we passed by here. The emptiness here was an illusion.
The entrance of the metro station. I was doing the same thing as the person in red clothing in front of me. Maybe there was also someone behind me doing the same.
The night of this weekend was different from other times. There were many interesting things on the street.
After it got dark, all the performers came out. There was a row of modified old cars (low riders) dancing on the street.
This reminded me of GTA SA.
Events on the street. Mainly for selling goods.
There was a 10-year-old car on the stage.
Actually there wasn't much to see. We were about to go home soon. On the way back, I saw a group of people gathering outside a hotel.
Leclerc allegedly was coming here, so everyone was waiting here.
I was waiting here like an idiot for an hour or two, but I didn't see him coming. I saw Charles's brother and Binotto.
It's OK.
Saw this thing in the parking garage. The stains on it should be enough to prove its authenticity.
How could I become a volunteer?
It was sunny on Sunday.
The tickets for Saturday and for Sunday were bought separately, so the seats were different today, so we entered through another entrance.
Still crowded. There were more people today.
Behind the grandstand, I saw many people sitting facing the water. I didn't know what they were doing. The track was not here either.
This was the bottom of the grandstand. The screen here was much larger than that of yesterday's remote place.
Today we sat in the place of the hairpin (turn 10). Here there was a relatively larger viewing platform and a more lively crowd.
Seemed like it was much hotter today than yesterday.
After the drivers and the paddock club did their parade, we waited for the race start. Interestingly, when the rich people came to us on the truck, everyone was unanimously booing.
At two o'clock after noon, the race started. About 70% of the people in the field were recording with their phones.
Actually, later I found out that using my phone's zooming feature, I could see much clearer information when aiming at the screen than watching it using my eyes.
The drivers started their race. I also started my car-shooting game. There was not too much else to do here honestly.
The cars flashed past my camera, which was much harder to capture than I imagined.
The burst shooting function of my phone could bring me some convenience.
Hmm... It's a bit uneasy.
I could only get the real-time information of the track through watching the F1 App. Even the audience in front of me was watching the live broadcast on their phones.
I would watch the recording of the race after this.
V5 was going to retire at the end of 2022. Oh, we lost another legend and idol everybody liked.
The race was done. Sainz Jr. didn't catch up with Verstappen in the last lap. We witnessed every lap of the 1-2 battle.
I climbed over the fence and entered the track like the person on the left in the image.
But there was a dog hole nearby that one could get out of...
Lots of people were heading to the pit area. I was jealous of the people on the Grandstand 1.
Staff of Alfa Romeo seemed to have left the track very quickly.
In this day's main race, something happened that made me feel embarrassed for a long time.
I was trying to purchase the three-day pass for the weekend on stubhub while it was still Wednesday. Even though the their website said the tickets were sent by the seller (mobile transfer), I never received it even on Friday, whereas the Friday practice session was already happening. I had to purchase the Sunday ticket on the same platform, and the Saturday ticket on seatgeek. Both were ready-to-download electronic tickets.
On Sunday, when we were watching the drivers' parade, a person with the same pdf file as ours came to our seats.
So extra people were fitted to our row and everybody had to squeeze themselves. Luckily, someone felt the race was boring and left in the middle of the race, which made the seats less crowded.
Honestly, my apology to the drinking man "sitting" near the edge of our aisle.
I had valid reasons to demand refund from the ticket agency because we were double-sold the tickets. But we technically watched the whole race (at this time I recalled the ticket checker who didn't care at all when we entered the track).
I still decided to call the agency. After two rounds of questionnaires, I still haven't received any further response.
And yes, because I am lazy and busy, I am finishing this post on February 26th, 2023.
After going home on Sunday, I got a fever and cough the next week. T_T
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