Canadian Grand Prix 2007 Pictures, Part 1

I've only been able to narrow it down to 83 photos I want to post. Turns out I took 752 photos and several movies, so it's just over 1% for posting. Since that's a lot, the posting will be split to several tranches. This group will be the race environs, the support races, and a few teasers of practices.

So let's start with our "view" from Grandstand 11, Section 5, Row PP. This is the widest angle I have shooting from my seat. The RBS banner way in the distance in centre left is the start line (easier seen if you click on the picture to blow it up), Turn 1 is the one on the left, Turn 2 the "hairpin" on the right. Cars that don't brake correctly coming into Turn 1 (like Fenando Alonso did 3 times during the race) tend to shortcut across the big asphalt pad. Our seats were lower down and more to the right than last year, but they weren't the best because of a railing right beside me. Mike and John could should pictures over it, but I had to shoot through it. It limited my ability to capture the action between Turns 1 and 2.



So if that's a wide angle at the Senna Corner, this is the basic view I can get with the zoom lens. It's Adrian Sutil in the orange Spyker chasing Giancarlo Fisichella in his ING Renault into Turn 2.



I like the Senna Corner for a lot of reasons. You get to see the start, there's a lot of passing into Turn 1, and you can get right down to track level and take some wicked closeups. This post isn't really about F1 that much, but here's my guy, Jarno Trulli, diving into Turn 2.



Another "teaser" F1 shot is below.

But this post is about everything else at the track. The first support race is the Ferrari Challenge. The cars are F430s set up for racing. They have 490 hp engines, and sound very pretty. Here they are at the start, about to hit into that first corner.



That first corner didn't work out too well for the 86 car, who tried to bust loose from 2nd position, but ended up spinning out and onto the grass.



What's amazing to me is that these guys actually crash and wreck these $250,000 cars (and that's the price for a used one, by the way). Here's a guy who drove a few laps with smoke pouring out and parts dangling off after an "incident"



These guys get down and dirty and really race.



The next support races were Formula 1600, which are a standard engine inside a standard chassis, covered by fairly unstandard body type. The wheels have a wide stance, and the cars themselves feature a Ford 1600 GT engine sourced from a European Ford Cortina GT and a 4 speed transmission.



So what happens when three of these guys come sailing into the corner side by side?



Usually the guy on the inside makes the corner first.



The final support race is the Formula BMW. This is a class race for kids 15-23, and yes, there was a 15 year old in these cars. The cars are powered by a 1200 cc BMW motocycle engine that generates 140 hp into a 6 speed manual gearbox. The cars are spec, and cost about $57,000 Euros new (that's about $80,000 Cdn. Be thankful it's not your 15 year old).



This is the pack attacking into the first corner at the start.



These guys really race, too.



Here's a teaser of F1 shots to come in the next post. It's Kimi Raikonnen being chased by Mr. Coulthard. Click on it. I dare you (that's heat haze obscuring Mr. Coulthard).



I like our corner.