marshall the marshal's excellent adventure part deux - 2007

[mtminardi]

Wow. All I can say is Wow!

I can't believe I was a part of this weekend. I feel lucky having been in attendance for Hamilton's arrival on the scene at Silverstone last year and his double GP2 win. To follow that up with his first pole, and first win, working as a marshal no less was absolute magic. I am compiling a documentation of my weekend, as it happened. Keep in mind I was flagging/intervention during sessions, so photos during race action are a no-no. Big trouble if ya do that.


All I can say is, thank god Kubica is ok. And congratulations to Lewis, the friendliest, down to earth, and fastest race driver I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and watching in race action about 10 feet away from my right arm. Any doubts I had about this kid are forgotten.


What a weekend. Mike, you were brilliant to come...and Farz, HOW COULD YOU MISS IT!!!

Day 1: Thursday.


Arrival at the track for the public pit walk through. Got to the track late around 930. Got pictures of most of the garages and front wings, like i do every year. Two remarkable things happened on Thursday:

1. McLaren wheeled out their cars for scrutineering, just like last year. First Hamilton, and then Freddy. See photos below. I got tons of close up shots of the new McLaren. What I was most surprised about was first of all, how much these cars have changed in two short years. I compared them to the car photos I got in 2005 and the level of aerodynamic complexity is astounding. Even Ferrari in 2005 were largely flat sidepod surfaces and in comparison, every aspect of the chassis now appears to be aerodynamic in nature, right down to the holes cut in the rear wing endplates. I did notice that two teams in particular tended to have more convoluted designs: McLaren and Red Bull. Newey has trained his former staff well, it would seem.

2. My brother was wearing an Albers hat, and the Spyker drivers came out to sign autographs. Albers and Sutil both signed his Albers hat...

Other than that I walked around for 2 hours looking for the registration trailer for marshals because I had driven there last year with someone else and had no idea where it was. I must have walked 4km just to find the damn thing!



Day 2. Friday!

Well! Friday. Time for things to get started.

My post: 8 (chicane before the hairpin)

For the first F1 session I was intervention behind the wall in the gravel trap. Nobody paid us a visit but we had lots of "chicane cutters" to keep things entertaining. The second session I was on the flagging stand on the radio. It was hectic and I did a pretty poor job for my first time on the radio, truth be told. You're so close to the track and they go right under you so quickly. What I was amazed at though is that if you're looking you can see SO much detail, in terms of the drivers helmets and the car's features. But you have to be so focused. If you arent looking directly at it it is so easy to miss helmets and camera mount colours to differentiate team cars. Everything is reported according to car numbers as well, and I find that difficult on the spot. I just wanted to say "Trulli" once, as he appeared to break his suspension over the curb right in front of me (I saw the wheel go all skee-wiff)...but I had to say "Car 12, suspension damage on curb drivers right". Thats ALL I had to say. But for some reason, and because things were so fast and furious I said Car 8 (Toyota was car 8 a few years ago, I must have reverted). I KNOW 8 is barrichello, but its just you're so on the spot, you know they have everything in control on the monitors and they know if you screw up. It was HIGH pressure.

In addition to trulli's damage, we had several drivers cut the chicane, including Massa (twice I believe), Fisichella, and Alonso. But the BIG event happened after the checkered. The crew chief was on yellows, and she wasn't expecting what we saw either. Webber and Speed came by us side by side and webber got ahead...only to do what "looked" I stress the quotation marks as I have NO idea the context of this incident, but looked like a brake check. The foam inside the nose exploded and off we went to clean up the mess. Sweep sweep sweep. We were sure the drivers would be reprimanded but I still am not sure if they were. We were so shocked to see it after the session was over, by RBR sponsored drivers, and after the checkered when you're not supposed to pass. It was surreal.

After cleaning up that mess, our chief said "well, its only a ferrari challenge practice next...should be no problem". WRONG. It was like she jinxed it because the very first two cars out came together at the chicane. CRACK! One right into the back of the other exactly like speed and webber. One continued and the other had his car towed away by a kubota but then rejoined after reseting the onboard computer. It left a ton of debris on the track which was promptly run over by half the field. Drivers seemed to not know what their brakes were for for most of the session and it was quite crazy for cars going off. And this was only a practice session.


There was definitely a feeling that something big was going to happen this weekend.


After the friday sessions I gathered up my brother who was sitting in the hairpin grandstand and we took a walk down track towards the paddock looking for drivers. Who should we come across but Lewis, Freddy, Massa, Liuzzi, Button, Nakajima, and, you guessed it, Mr. Lewis Hamilton. After snapping some pictures of Kimi with my brother, he ran off, but he did sign an autograph in the program for him, without saying a word of course. I have a picture of kimi with my brother, but kimi looks quite p***ed off.
Alonso was wearing a very swanky looking suit...he signed autographs as well. But Lewis came and was so impressive, he took time to greet the fans, and was genuinely impressed by the attention he was receiving in Montreal, which had adopted him as the new hero. Now, having a chance to talk to him...I couldnt think what to say. But I didn't have to say anything, because HE talked to ME! I've never seen a driver address a fan. Ever. What did he talk about? The weather! HAHA. "Wow the support has been great, and weather is beautiful here in Canada". I wasn't even sure what to say. I said something like, "Yeah Lewis I think F1 brings the good weather because its always hotter than normal when F1 comes to town...we actually do live in igloos most of the time". Just something stupid like that. He laughed, stuck around for photos with a kid who had come by...and then said thanks, we said good luck, and off he went. And my brother and I were just thinking, wow, what a nice guy.

Now, my brother has a Lewis Hamilton autographed program from the weekend of his first win. Wow. In the words of Mika Hakkinen: "Incredible".

And thats just the first 2 days.

[The Ghost Who Walks]

Prepare to be hated
And what about Sat and Sunday?
No surprise about Kimi. But a nice Lewis story. Nice work

[mtminardi]

oh sat is coming up....right now...


My post for Saturday was 11. That is the cut out at the slight kink in the backstraight after the exit to the hairpin, right at the medical building. The cars are at full speed here.

We had some FF1600 racing, for that session I was blue flagging. There were actually some backmarkers as there was a very big field. It was soooooooooooo slow in comparison though. It was like the cars were crawling along at a snails pace. Our station became the car park for that race as there were at least 3 damaged cars towed to our cutout from the hairpin for easy retrieval by the teams after the session. I have some pics but everyone knows what smucked up formula fords look like...its pretty unremarkable.

For Saturday practice in F1 I was cross track on the drivers right. This was by far the least I could see all weekend, as there was minimal line of sight at this post. The thing about Montreal is that its advertisers first, fans second, then us, in terms of importance. Thus, we had our views completely obstructed by large advertising banners wherever we went, meaning we had to lean out to see, putting ourselves more in the line of fire should something go wrong. Thankfully it didnt. It was incredible to feel the speed of the cars as they came by. What was amazing is that we were at least half a km to the hairpin by that point, its a very long walk, but just how fast the cars eat up that ground. Basically if I kind of leaned in to get a look down track and saw a car coming aroudn the hairpin, it was by me in about 3 seconds. Which is just crazy when you think of how I could BARELY see the hairpin with the naked eye. I certainly could not identify from back there which car it was, it was that far away. And then BAM! They are right there. You just dont get that perspective from the grandstand where they try and let you see as much as you can. For marshals, you only need to see the piece of track you're responsible for. The thing you do notice is how much different your eye works than a camera, as stupid as that sounds, as for a split second you can see all the detail on the car as it passes...its like your brain takes a snapshot at the single second in time, its hard to explain. They were going by me at over 300kmh and it is kind of cool how much you can take in even at that speed. There's no way you can follow them though, unless you lean out and watch them coming...which was kind of frightening given the fact that there is about 1 foot or less of grass between the wall and track where the cutout in the fence is, and they take an inside line through there. The ground is low there because there is a little canal behind the backstraight (to keep the paying fans away from the dangerous back straight) so the wall was at about my neck. That contributed to the lack of ability to view.

The locale proved to be fairly tame in terms of incidents (thank god because if one ever happened there, may god help the driver involved), it provided one of my biggest moments of excitement of the weekend.

During the Ferrari Challenge practice session, we noticed that the airflow coming off the cars was loosening one of the panels in the Bridgestone advertising along that section of track. The problem got worse and worse, and was something that did not happen in F1 (the tin tops have much more wind resistence and actually produced more breeze when they went by than an F1 car). With about five minutes left in the session, the piece flew off, onto the track, right in the line of fire. A separate accident about a lap later brought out a red flag in the session, and the marshal cross track, the guy from my home track who taught me all I need to know, ran out and got it before the session was restarted.

Before F1, track crew came along, and re-fastened the boarding. Advertising dollars talk, as you know, and they wanted it put back together. They refastened it using a washer and rivet into the 2x4 structure along the fence. Then it was time for Formula One Qualifying! The big show. The world feed! For all the marbles.

So I was stationed as the runner in the service vehicle cut out, and you can see me in this photo:


Note: The distortion on the zoom lens makes us look like fat midgets. haha. I am the one in white, beside the fireman on the left, and the crane workers on the right.

This is an exquisite place for viewing but its kind of scary to look up track with them coming in so fast. I prefered to watch with one eye up track for incidents safely through the fence and downtrack at the unobstructed view all the way down to the chicane. That is a 1km straight folks, and it looks like nothing on tv. Once again, you can barely even see the chicane on the other side. Its so far and they go by so fast that I can't even describe it. Its a cool place to be.

So, in Q1, after Heikki's crash, we noticed that the bstone boarding was coming loose again. Race control was quite worried about this , because as you recall, in brazil 2000, the circuit was severely fined and reprimanded when an ad boarding came down on top of Jean Alesi. In this screenshot of Q1, you can kind of see the lift on the sign panel as DC goes by:



After Q1 was over, time was of the essence. The organizers wanted that board down ASAP. But TV was already behind sched due to Heikki's crash. There was NO way they were going to delay the session. I ran down to the board, about 150 yards or so away from where I was standing along with a couple other marshals and we tried to tear it off (all four corners were loose but it was stuck by that new rivet they had put in). So now it was bent and hanging down over the track. Not good. We ran back and said it wouldnt budge. They told us to get it off, so off we went back 150 yards, all during the break betw q1 and q2 to get that board down. One of our other marshals, a very experienced guy from Lime Rock park who has been doing this for ages got there first, took out his hunting knife and started hacking. He cut around the rivet and the panel broke free. I grabbed the signage as it fell, and started running my ass off, with this huge piece of billboard as big as I was down to the next cutout before post 12. I was DOG tired. I'm out of shape but I knew I couldnt stop. Kevin was yelling..."GO GO GO!" and he didnt need to as I knew they werent going to stop the cars for us.

We got back to our post with about 45 seconds to spare, in time to hear the engines roar on the other side of the circuit as the green lights went on. I wanted to vomit, but I was back in position and ready to go.

You can see in this screenshot from Q2 the offending billboard having been removed, once again with DC coincidentally. And that was all done within 3 minutes. Wow. And to think of the disaster that could have caused. And you, and countless other fans, I can guarantee, did not notice that board missing, nor even know there was a problem. The producers make an effort to avoid showing track work like this in progress, and to make the coverage completely seamless. Nobody even knew it happened. The only way you would see us is if we had screwed up. And its a great feeling to be a part of that and let the show go on uninterrupted!



After the end of qualifying, I of course didn't know who had achieved pole, as we're out of range of the PA system (no grandstands on the back straight). But as they came by very slowly in order to conserve fuel, we stood in a row trackside as they flowed by. When Fern passed us, there was no thumbs up, there was no wave, nothing. And then when Lewis arrived, he was giving thumbs up and shaking his fist in the cockpit, and crawled by us giving the thumbs up to myself, the firemen and the kubota/crane operators. I knew then it was a historic moment. I had been there, ON the circuit, trackside, as Lewis won his first pole. Surreal.

And I thought that would be the incredible moment I took away from the weekend. But not even close. Not by a longshot.


There was still Sunday to go.

[Max Mosley]

That's brilliant! I certainly didn't spot it.

[The Ghost Who Walks]

Awesome!
*Mashes refresh key*

[mtminardi]

ive got a lot to write for sunday. expect it tomorrow tho.

[The Ghost Who Walks]

ive got a lot to write for sunday. expect it tomorrow tho.

It's like seeing the "To Be Continued" come on in the middle of a cliffhanger moment

[mtminardi]

i will tell you one thing. i was not at the hairpin....lol.

[LOUD HOWARD]

He was at Turn Alonso

As for the Webber thing to bring you up to date, the stewards looked at it and said he didn't brake test him, but he got a reprimand for squeezing Scott on the entry to the corner.

Anyways, I eagerly await Sundays write up Good work!

[Alex]

What a brilliant weekend you had, it sounds awesome! It's nice to hear that Lewis is as genuine a person as he appears on TV, what a sound bloke.

[Richard]

Awesome read. Everytime you marshal there makes me want to volunteer at Silverstone! Can't wait to hear the Sunday story!

[rolf]

thanks! can't wait to read about sunday. did you know the marshalls who nearly got hit by kubica?

[Picci]

Read it in the morning but didn't have time to post. Fantastic stuff mate. You make us feel proud to be members of FMB by reading stuff like this!

[McLarenFS2]

Excellent stuff. I can't wait to hear about Sunday!

[scar]

good job!
meet any women?

[The Ghost Who Walks]

good job!
meet any women?

The crew chief was on yellows, and she wasn't expecting what we saw either.

Read more carefully

[mtminardi]

And here it is.


Sunday morning, Race Day.

The day started with the Ferrari Challenge race. I was working pit exit. There were a few amateur hour incidents at turn 1, spins and such, and a major crash elsewhere on the circuit that brought out the safety car. One thing that was weird is that the safety car came out in about 4th place in the queue, and instead of getting the top 4 to move over he got the whole field of about thirty cars to pass him and come back another lap...and they were doing 1m40s at the best of times....so it wasted a good 10 mins of a 30 min race, it seemed. The 2nd and 3rd place cars went missing at one point (we heard an "awww" from the crowd and assumed they must have taken each other out), and lo and behold, Patrice Brisebois, the former Montreal Canadiens "star" defenceman (they always called him 'breeze by" because thats what the other team used to always do) found himself in his first ever podium position. He held it for most of the remaining laps until the aforementioned 'take forever' safety car. For most of the weekend, the ol' Breezer, now a member of the Colorado Avalanche team, had got a lukewarm reception from the loyal montreal faithful. Some boo'ed and others cheered. In 2005, he famously was DQ'ed after a 10th place finish that saw him take out 3 other cars in separate accidents in a fashion that would make even Andrea de Crasheris himself proud. But on this day he was driving like a real pro, had pegged the gap to the cars and front and had pulled a 2 or 3 sec gap out to the 4th place man. With him in 3rd place, the crowd had warmed up to him and were cheering the local celeb on to his first podium result. The safety car was away, with only time for a two lap run to the finish. Breeze-by held his line for the first of those, and most of the final lap.
Until the wall of champions. On the final corner of the final lap, the crowd favorite had outbraked himself under pressure, missed the apex, and narrowly avoided the infamous "Bienvenue au Quebec" corner that had claimed so many. The loss of momentum sent cars streaming past him, and he clipped the line in fifth or sixth place. Bitter disappointment after such a great race.

The second support race of the morning was Formula BMW. What a snorefest. I was blue flag but in the 30 min race the last place car was still 30 sec up the road from the leader, so I never had to pick it up once. The field was smaller than ever, and the little 500cc 4stroke bike engines in those cars seriously leave a lot to be desired. 2 minute laps? No thanks. That was the only forgettable part of the weekend.

Lunch break was cool. The aforementioned Bob from Lime Rock and I went to the top of the camera tower past turn 1 to eat our lunches. Coolness. The view is unparallelled up there. The structural integrity of the scaffolding left a lot to be desired but from there we got a great view of the drivers parade and pit lane preparations before race time. It was just kind of neat to be way up above the track looking down. Its hard to fathom just how quickly that hour went by...time flies in those circumstances.

For the race, I was yellow flag at turn 1. The flag post is stationed right here: I am waving the yellow in this screen shot.

You have to wave the yellow at all times during an SC whether cars are around or not. Boy was my arm tired after sunday, haha. Not really, adrenaline lets you wave the thing all day.

The tension was palpable at the start. As you can see from the screenshot, we are separated from the actual track surface by about five feet of grass. This was PRIME territory with a full view of the entire first and second corner complex. I stood at the ready, knowing something would happen.
I witnessed the entire first corner incident. I saw Fernando spear across the grass, and, I was watching the front as he collected it back onto the road and nearly took Lewis out. I had the yellow flag rolled up but already hanging out the hole waiting to be waved, and I was amazed they didnt touch. I would like to say that I saw the Kimi/Felipe incident but I'd be lying. I was watching for spinners and incidents, debris, and the like, and there wasn't any. It is incredible how quickly 21 cars stream past you - we'd heard someone stall and try desperately to fire the engine, and later found out it was button. I looked back at my comms person and the blue flagger (they had been at that station before) and just looked at them with a stunned look on my face and said WOW. She said I could go take a run to the porta-john and clean up if I wanted to, haha! It was pretty much the epitome of everything I thought it would be. To witness the start of a Grand Prix from trackside is a thrill I won't soon forget. And the ringing in my ears still hasn't gone away. I didn't have much time to revel in it though as the cars were coming by again in what didn't feel like a minute.

At this point I was getting comfortable, watching the apex of 1. The critical thing about yellow flagging is to watch the corner, not the cars. Yellow is particularly in the line of fire as you are always to be looking down track. The blue flagger is looking uptrack and he is your eyes. If he/she tells you to jump, something massive is happening and you bail. This is the flagger code. You cannot do the neck crane and follow the cars. You are watching each and every car to ensure that they are getting through the corner safely and should an incident arise, you throw the yellow as fast as you can. Everyone has their job to do. Since I was watching the apex of the corner, I had a perfect view of how Alonso kept getting too hot and missing it.

What I really liked about that spot is how you could see so clearly an incident happening in advance. When Fernando and Mark came in too hot, you could see he was going to cut the corner. Just have the flag at the ready in case he spins...but there was no question, you can just tell. He did bring some dirt and grass onto the track and we covered it under debris flags. Webber's spin was particularly cool. I had the yellow out and waving before he had made it halfway around.
Taku left a piece of debris on track too, a piece of a brake duct or something. Kevin got a chance to run out and pick it up.

First SC board was a bit hectic. At the time, the call for SC came and we werent sure why...we had a tv in the hospitality section behind us but it was hard to see. We saw a spyker had hit the wall and we wrongly deduced it was Albers (mainly because he had been so carp all race to that point in our corner while Sutil had looked handy). The race fell into chaos at that point. It was hard to follow for viewers on TV so it was even worse for us. We knew that Lewis had made his stop, as had Heidy but the rest, I tried to keep track of who was in and who wasnt as we were right on pit exit but it was hard to know who had stopped and who hadn't. That first SC seemed to last forever though for some reason.

Shortly after that restart, came the incident of the weekend. It was quite amazing and surreal. As if all at once, the crowd in the grandstands yelled "OOOOOOH!"....then all fell silent. As they showed the replay, they uttered another, but even louder this time. I later found out that this was because live action only caught the tail end of it and the replay showed the full intensity of the hit. I turned around for a second to see if I could catch the replay. The distance of the screen and the brightness of the sun only allowed me to see the intensity of the impact, the flying pieces and I could tell that the car rolled. I wasn't even sure at that point where on the circuit the crash had happened. I just knew it was bad.

I think there was a collective "fear the worst" few moments for everyone. For me, this was for three reasons. The first, and most eerie, was the silence of the crowd. You knew that if Robert got out there would be a massive cheer. And everyone was waiting for that cheer. But it never came. No airhorns, no cheering, no nothing. That was frightening. The second, was that the first lap after the Safety car was deployed, the field was led by a Honda Civic course car. This of course was not standard procedure (I can't think of this ever happening before). I just thought, though I didn't say, that it must be REALLY bad if the safety car stopped to assess. REALLY BAD. I still don't know why that happened but I would love if anyone can say why. Its just one of those weird things that I think added to the tension in unusual circumstances. The final thing was that my comms person had her hand on the red flag. Most people don't know this, but if a driver is declared dead on track, the session must be stopped. It is an International rule. She had been to many many many Grand Prix races before, and she saw the replay at a much better angle than I did. Plus, she had the radio...had they been ordered to have their hand ready on the red? All these questions running through my head, and I didn't ask, because I didnt want to know. I had this feeling right from Friday that this was going to be a race to remember. I knew Lewis was going to win right from the day I got there. I didn't like the prospects of this great weekend being marred by horrible tragedy at my home track. More than anything, I wanted Robert to be O.K. The restart a few laps later made me rest easy a little. I knew that if they had him extricated that quickly and did not delay the race that long, he had to have been relatively ok (recall the 11 lap SC delay in Monza 2000 when a marshal was killed).
After that initial panic and worry stage, I had settled down, and deduced that it was all okay, and was ready to go again.



When things resumed, we found out everyone was on the lead lap somehow and so it was easy to pick up the order again. I was completely unaware of the Rosberg and Alonso penalties so I was shocked to see them pit in under green flag conditions. That was really confusing, I have to say. Somewhere around this time, the Rosberg/Trulli incident happened. I had a really nice view of it and I have to say I saw the whole thing coming. It was weird because when I watched the replay after, it looked completely different than from my angle. What I saw was Rosberg spinning, Trulli anticipating the spin, and then spinning himself to avoid it. While on TV it looked like two completely separate mistakes causing spins, with nico running wide and Truilli cutting in early, in person, it looked like Trulli had to lose it to avoid hitting Nico. Regardless I was on the yellow flag and was anticipating Nico to grab first gear and be on his way. The time he took to finally get going again felt like FOREVER. I was expecting him to go, and he just couldnt start the thing. I don't think it was 25 sec he sat there but it seemed like two minutes. Time was standing still!

After the 3rd safety car (was it for Liuzzi I think), Barrichello was running 3rd. We were all amazed. It was funny because I turned to my crew chief and said to her, you know Barrichello is third, right? We both couldnt stop laughing. Of all the GP's. By this time, Kubica's shunt was forgotten, on the surface at least, and we were reveling in the messed up result. We didn't know that Barrich had to stop again as pit strategies were out the window by this point...we didnt really know who had or hadn't stopped, etc. The marshal on comms has a crush on Rubens so she was happy "ohh he's such a sweetie", etc, etc. But when he did come in she was disappointed.

The 4th SC we didnt know what it was for. All we heard was "debris on track". When it did come out the crowd erupted in Boos and whistles. It was really funny, but really, how could they be p***ed after a GP like this one? So what if they called one questionable Safety car. Can you blame them for being cautious after what happened to RK? The DQ of Felipe and Fisi was advised over the radio. We were told it was for passing under SC at the time...I wanted to see Fisi on the podium but I wasn't too disappointed because a Rubens or Wurz podium would have been way cooler.

On the cruise to the finish, we heard the crowd erupt in cheers when Sato passed Alonso...that was nice. Also I at that point was shocked that Wurz was actually running 3rd. I suspected he ran 1 stop, but I wasn't really sure how the heck he got there. I kept thinking, didn't he start 19th? I can't wait to watch the tape and find out how the hell this happened! I was also pretty proud of identifying Wurz's damaged rear wing. I could see it rattling as he came by us, and I told the crew chief, but she deduced there was nothing wrong with it (It was going by so fast and I think the crew removed the hanging pieces and cleaned it up on his stop). When I saw the scale of the damage after, I have to say I was really impressed by his drive. I know it was a lucky podium, but holy frig, I've seen cars retire with less damage than that. It lays waste to the excuses of Alonso and KR when they complain about minor damage messing up their handling!

For the last few laps it was clear sailing for Hamilton. I was just hoping nothing would happen to him (although I would have been almost as thrilled with a Nick win, haha). Like I said there was a feeling of destiny in this win, and I just knew it was going to happen here.

As the last lap call came, I was preparing for Lewis to cross the line. I got the yellows out for the traditional flag parade, leaned out as far as I could, as ours is the first station after start finish, and pumped my fist as Lewis drove by. I could see his excitement in the car, he waved to us, to the crowd and you could see him just bouncing with excitement in the cockpit. It gave me chills, it was so spectacular.

Post Race

After the warm up lap we packed up all the flags and gear, and I took off running for the podium. I got there just as Lewis pulled in, and got out my camera. But my day wasn't over yet. As you recall, Trulli made a bonehead move at the pit out under SC conditions and planted his toyota in the wall. It was funny actually because at the time, I was already waving a yellow for the SC, and he crashed so I started waving double yellows. Comms radioed in and said "Corner 1, double waved yellow"...and control said "you mean single waved". She goes "Nope...double...car 12 off track drivers left at 2". She said apparently there was some consternation, then a surprised "oh..." from race control. Looks like they were expecting it about as much as we were, haha.
Well, anyway, the Kubota crews were attempting to return the Toyota to the garage, but as you know the fans always invade the circuit at Ile Notre Dame, so yeah it became a mad house as drunken and over-excited fans tried to touch the car, get photos and, if they could, get pieces off it. So as I was preparing to shoot some podium photos, a Kubota crew woman in orange grabs my hand and pulls me over to create a human chain around the elevated car. We then started to move forward but we could only get as far as the front rail of parc ferme so as not to interrupt the podium celebrations. But that gave me prime position to see the podium and snap this pic.



This moment is the memory I will take away most from the whole weekend. As I stood besided other marshals and crane workers, arms linked, playing crowd control for Trulli's Toyota, Lewis arrived on the top step to the sound of God Save the Queen. Meanwhile ambitious fans were poking and pushing closer and closer to the Toyota on the Kubota hoist. As the champagne was being sprayed, I managed to snap these photos all while telling fans not to touch the car. Only three years ago I was one of those slack jawed fans trying to touch the blown up Jag of Christian Klien, haha. What a sense of irony.

So here's what I was viewing in front of me:





The happiness on the podium, and the spraying of the champagne confirmed that Robert Kubica was fine and with that, I could truly enjoy the moment. But just for perspective, I turned around in the middle of taking these pictures, in order to give perspective to where I was actually standing. Keep in mind, I have not moved my location, this is just turning around 180 degrees:



At this point, I thought....holy c***, if that car falls I'm going to get crushed...So I improvised some crowd control and gave myself some space, haha. But that just gives a sense of that surreal moment.
And then this is where things turned ugly. Once the podium show was over, the Toyota was once again the center of attention for the crowd instead of a side show. One of the crew chiefs for officials in charge of the Kubotas was directing the movement of Trulli's car. He was on an ATV, and was trying to push the crowd out of the way, with authority but without physical force. He was acting in a completely reasonable manner. But one of the drunken fans started yelling at him in french as he brushed up against him. The official was an older gentleman, maybe in his fifties and seemed quite bewildered. The fan continued to yell obscenities and pushed the poor man. He once again didn't react, and his friend tried to diffuse the situation. Some other fans tried to do the same, and it seemed like things had calmed down.
We resumed our human chain, after the podium had been cleared, and began to clear people out of the area with our linked arms to give the Kubota room to bring the car in. Security moved the parc ferme rail slowly, and the official parked his ATV under the toyota as we moved forward to act as a crowd clearing mechanism. At this point, that same fan blindsided the official while he sat on the ATV with a cowardly punch to the side of his face. Another worker shoved the man, and it became quite heated. His friend who was also inebriated came to his defense and wanted a fight as well. The crowd was a mix of those wanting to raid, and those wanting to help us...I have no doubt that if those two troublemakers have stayed a brawl would have ensued, but the crowd managed to scare the cowards out of the area. But it was so close. We continued our progress until the car was entirely within the safe confines of the parc ferme. The onlooking security guards did nothing. Just as I didn't, as much as I wanted to slug him...I was just completely bemused and frozen. What a chaotic moment. There is no doubt that had the altercation escalated, we wouldn't have been able to hold them back...I wasn't going to get in a fight, get injured, or face assault charges or something to protect an F1 car...But it was truly a moment of complete chaos after an ecstatic and surreal moment.

I went back to Post 1 and sat with my fellow marshals...and reflected on a crazy weekend. Not only had it been one of the most entertaining races in recent memory, but it had been the weekend of the first pole and win for Lewis Hamilton, and the scene of the most miraculous escape for a driver since Taku Sato hit Nick in Austria 2002. After the race I met my brother who had been sitting in the grandstand where Kubica had hit the wall (the same grandstand that amazing video was taken from), and went back to the dock at paddock exit with my brother to meet some drivers and kill some time for the subway station to clear out. I got my marshal's bib signed by the 2nd star of the day, Super Nick, as well as Jarno, Christijan and Mark Webber. Neato!



A great way to end a perfect weekend.

[Michael]

Great story! BTW, do you have any group photos of the marshals?

[Kai-Star]

Super stuff. A long read but well worth it. It's good to hear from this side of a GP.

[mtminardi]

other people took some, I didnt bother. I used my camera sparingly as we have jobs to do.

We did take a pic of the crew by the sign boarding that we removed...once I get that pic I'll post it for sure.


Oh, and I do apologize for the length. I didnt realize how long it was going to be, haha.

[The Ghost Who Walks]

Awesome stuff. Well done

[Michael]

Oh, and I do apologize for the length.

Nah, the longer the better.

[scar]

Nice Pic under the car.
Turn one is the best you had a great spot for the race.

[Brière]

tbh, I think I'll call the ASRQ for next year

[LOUD HOWARD]

From what I could see, the normal safety car gave the medical car an escort around the track. When they got to the hairpin it looked like they were passing some of the F1s!

Great story.