Canadian GP Weekend: Saturday

After being in the grandstand on Friday, I couldn't go back to being seat-less.  So I woke up early and trolled Craigslist Montreal.  Apparently, the Ferrari Club of New England bought 80 seats at Grandstand 33.  Only 77 members made it to Canada, so three seats were for re-sale.  I bought Saturday and Sunday tickets for more than 1/2 off the listed price.  Score.

Having learned my lesson from yesterday, I took the Metro to the track.  STM, the local transit system, has an excellent graphic artist on staff.  S/he created a simple and elegant sign, pointing the way to the Grand Prix.

As I exit the station, a guy is playing the guitar and singing.  People drop coins in his guitar case.  He's playing that song from Donnie Darko.

A gray haired man, obviously mentally and physically disabled, is in his motorized wheelchair, begging for money.  An eight year old girl in front of me asks her dad for money, gets it, and runs back to the wheelchaired man and makes a donation.  The dad seems proud.

This is the short bridge that connects the Metro station to the track.  The track is on an artificial island made up of soil dug up to create Montreal's subway system.  As you can see, the weather on Saturday was much gloomier than Friday's weather.

This is an eye-level view from Grandstand 33.

This is the view from my seat.  Renault seems to have learned its lesson.  Rather than running its cars at the last minute of qualifying sessions (and risking slow traffic and yellow flags), Heidfeld and Petrov ran hot laps during virtually the entire Q1, Q2, and Q3 sessions.  Though Heidfeld was on the bubble for an eternity during Q2, he made it to Q3.  Finally, he ended up out-qualifying his Russian teammate.