Photo TR: 2009 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix

[Cameron]

I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend the 2009 Australian Grand Prix, what an amazing event! The qualifying on Saturday afternoon was amazingly exciting, with the Brawn team getting the top two places on the grid. This team has been very cool to watch, since they basically did not exist until last month, and didn't even have a sponsor until just a few days ago!

 

My brother and I went to see the qualifying on Saturday, which was exceptionally great. The most interesting thing about this was that you never know where the cars stand until after they cross the line, and then there are other cars behind them that may still get faster times. Cars come and go at random during the qualifying laps, and they are scattered all over the track so that someone is always crossing the start/finish line and the ranks are constantly changing. Each time Brawn got the top two spots, everyone cheered wildly.

 

The race itself kicked serious butt. The weather could not have been better, and the energy and excitement in the stand was fantastic. Seeing Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello take first and second place for Brawn was quite incredible, even though old favorites like Ferrari weren't so hot. Button held a significant lead throughout the whole race, and really deserved to win. Barrichello drove well too, but ended up in 2nd place mostly due to crash near the end of the race.

 

We had fabulous seats which gave us a prime view of all the important developments, from qualifying all the way through to the champagne at the end.

 

There are a lot of photos, so I'll stagger them out a little bit to reduce bandwith. This first batch takes us right through to the checkered flag on race-day.

And there's the checkered flag, and Jenson Button wins the 2009 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix!!! (I was about a tenth of a second too early on the camera - which is why the car is missing from the photo!)

A crash near the end of the race brought out the yellow flag and the safety car. This was a bit of an anticlimactic way to end..

With only about 10-15 laps remaining, the Champagne is ready and waiting!

Fortunately we had a really nice, large monitor right near our seat. As awesome as it was to be there, it was actually a little more difficult to keep track of what was going on than when you watch on TV! Check-out the cool, video-game-esque display there

Go Go Brawn!!

The Ferrari crew swarms around a car that has come in for a pitstop. Our seats were near the end of the pit-lane, so it was great to see a car enter the pits on the video screen, and then see the actual car scream out of the pits several seconds later.

And they're off! Barrichello had a disappointing start, but Button was pretty much untouchable throughout the whole race.

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line, engines thumping and pumping in time..

Button and Barrichello are poised on the grid, in first and second spot. The atmosphere right now was electric!

The cars do one "warm-up" lap before the race begins, this gives the throngs of people a chance to run off the grid and get out of the way.

Only about 2 minutes now until race time, and the tire warmers are being removed.

Button is all strapped in, and ready to roll. Note the umbrella shading him from the sun, this was a twilight race and the setting sun was a bit of a problem.

It's so cute - Don't you just want to hug it?!

I wonder if this will be the 747 that will fly me back to the US next week?!

That, my friends, is a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. I love these things! It was weird how quiet this was (and it flew very low). But even more amazing was how slow it was going - taking about 5 minutes to get from one end of the straight to the other.

One of the major sponsors is Qantas, so they sent this little guy out to play..

The grid is very crowded now, with the teams, press and of course the cars (they are down there - trust me!).

The maneuvers he pulled were quite spectacular, but what I really loved was his exit. He would fly straight up, higher, higher, higher until you could not even see him any more. I have no idea how high he went, but it was monumentally cool to see.

Meanwhile a military jet did a fly-over, which was amazing. This thing is *loud*! They announced what model plane it is, but I don't recall - anyone? I imagine that Australia only has a small number of these, so it was great to see it out and about.

Everyone seemed to be rooting for Button and Barrichello with Brawn, so there was much cheering when they left the pits to head around to the grid.

The cars leave the pits, do the complete circuit, and end up in their final places on the grid.

Teams and equipment are wheeled out to the grid. I was amazed by how much was going on there before the race began. I'm sure the drivers were just itching to get going.

At 30 minutes before the race, the grid starts to prepare for the cars and teams to come out. This photo was taken from our seat in the Fangio stand.

The Roulettes are a fun air-acrobatic team, and they showed up many times over the weekend to wow and delight the crowd!

While attendance was down slightly from last year, there were still a lot of people there (roughly 105,000). The weather was amazing, and everyone was just loving it.

Welcome, race fans!! It was very exciting to be here, as I had arranged my whole vacation around it.

[Shockwave]

Great photos Cameron!

 

I got up early to watch the race and I'm really glad I did. Didn't spot in the crowd when they were doing the panning shots on the TV, but you got a really good spot to watch the race!

 

I was delighted to see Jenson win and Rubens complete the 1-2. Brawn could well be the team to beat if their diffusers are declared legal next week, the other teams could have a lot of catching up to do!

[Franc]

I am so sad we lost our Grand Prix here in Montreal.

It was the biggest event of the year. A whole week of festivities.

[BeemerBoy]

<---- Jealous.

 

Glad you had a great time there, Cam!

 

That military jet is an F-18. The same as what the Blue Angels fly.

[TheHulk]

^ An F/A-18, lots of people miss the A, but oh well. Lolz. Great TR, they have the Honda grand prix in a city a few hours from me, might head over and check it out some time.

[texashorns82492]

The planes are beautiful! Must have been quite the site to see that Qantas B747 fly so low!

 

Looks like you enjoyed your day!

[BeemerBoy]

^ An F/A-18, lots of people miss the A, but oh well. Lolz.

TomAto/tomato.

[gisco]

^ An F/A-18, lots of people miss the A, but oh well. Lolz. Great TR, they have the Honda grand prix in a city a few hours from me, might head over and check it out some time.

 

If you really want to get technical they are F/A-18A. Lots of people miss the last A but oh well.

 

 

Great pictures Cameron. Would love to see a race someday. It is pretty impressive to see the cars racing, It loses a little on TV.

[paintballer]

^ An F/A-18.

 

An F/A 18 Super Hornet

[TheStig]

Oh man I am SO jealous that you got to go to this! Totally not fair! I hope to one day get to a race, maybe Monza.

 

Great pictures Cameron, and GO BRAWN GP!!!!!!

[Cameron]

Ok here we go with the second batch of photos - which is everything that happened after freaking awesome Button won the race! (Sorry for the delay, I've been super busy (in a good way)).

 

PS: The third batch of photos are the ones I took when I got to walk down pit lane a few days before the race. Unfortunately I will not be able to upload those until some time next week (flying back to Chicago tomorrow!).

All of this was brought to you by....

And what does one do after watching the Grand Prix?!

View of Albert Park Lark (around which the track runs) from the Eureka Tower - which is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and the tallest residential building in the world. (Note Port Phillip Bay in the background - it's beautiful)

Diagram of the circuit. We were sitting in the Fangio Stand, which is the bottom/center of the map. My brother and I walked to the left/center of the map to the exit leading to the street where I was staying.

The event was so well run, and went so smoothly, that until I saw this sign I'd actually forgotten how dangerous the whole thing can be. (This sign refers to press photographers during the race, not people like me - I was quite safe when I took this ).

You can actually see the black swirlies from the wheels.

The wall against which the race ending crash happened.

Crazy to see that the track is already starting to be dismantled (remember, it ended about 30 minutes ago!). These guys are removing one of the tire walls.

Skid - crunch!

Wanker, artistic photo. Actually it was neat to see these too - remember this road is open to normal traffic the rest of the year.

Interesting to walk up (and over) the giant corporate logos. I put Shell gas in my car! (AAww, I miss my car..).

It was really cool to see all the tire marks and such on the track while we were walking. The camera is facing the direction of travel.

Walking back to where I was staying, my brother and I walked back along the track.

Part of the excitement of being there for me, was seeing some of the infrastructure involved in an event like this. Normally a very quiet lake and park, it's really transformed for the race. Imagine being the cameraman up there?!

A Grand Prix tradition - they really were having a great time.

Time for some Champagne!

Jensen Button drove fantastically well, and really deserved that award. More insane cheering when he held that up.

And there they are! A massive cheer when these three walked up.

In about 3 minutes, the start/finish line area was *packed*. It was quite a spectacular site. The area with the blue/white background is where the awards will take place.

Climbing the fence really became the Hot New Thing to do. The police tried to stop them, but were largely ineffective.

It's an Australian tradition to "run on" when a major event ends, whether it's football, cricket or in this case a car race!

[PoisonedPirate]

I'm so jealous! I really want to get to either the UK or German one this year but with my current funds I don't see it happening!

 

Button definitely deserved the win but I was gutted when Vettel crashed out - he's like my favourite! Did you hear him crying over the radio? On a random note Barrichello drove like a madman and still ended up 2nd - it just shows what Brawn are capable of!

[gerd.muller]

Great Pictures, looks like you had a real good time, ...but:

Just one word to discribe my current state of mind: JEALOUS!!!

Fortunatly I´ll be going to see the Race at Nürburgring in July.

But that´s still a long time until then, I´ll have to wait and watch the races on TV!

Thank´s for posting.

[hansrubens]

Great report.

 

It's been a while for me since my last race visit. I think it was Hockenheim 2005. It's always awesome to attend a formula 1 event.

 

It's been a very spectacular season up until now and I hope we will get more exciting races like Melbourne and Malaysia. Since I am a big Barrichello fan I hope he can win the next couple GP's.

 

----Hans

[BeemerBoy]

<----Not happy with how the season has started.

 

On a happier note, the F1 website has great video highlights posted. After agreeing on that page, just click the Australia link.

[PoisonedPirate]

^^ I'm so glad Brawn stuck with Barrichello after his less than brilliant time with Ferrari he deserves it! I heard all these rumours about getting Ayrton Senna's nephew or something in which would have sucked.

 

I watched an old Top Gear last week and on it Jeremy Clarkson interviewed Jenson Button before the whole Honda thing (it might have been around 2007 or older) and he said to Jenson something like "Would you give up the money and everything for the big win" to which he answered "Of course" and now that seems to be happening. Weird...