Spare Parts (F1 odds and ends)

You had access to the paddock ?

 

Yes, for the Friday at the British GP in 2017.

A friend of mine knew someone who had corporate paddock passes for the whole weekend but was only intending to use them on Saturday and Sunday, so my friend blagged them for Friday and we went as guests of his company. Incidentally, my friend has a 1990 Ferrari 458 (I think) and he picked me up in that. It was ridiculous.

It was like watching the F1 coverage on TV and then stepping into the TV.

Rest of the pictures are here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alistairpeck/albums/72157683875785531

 

The pictures are amazing. Are you a photographer by trade?

 

I worked for a few years as a freelance photographer, yes. I didn't often get into places like that though!

 

They were great images you managed to capture especially the cars on track, they seemed perfectly in focus (with wheel logos nicely blurred giving impression of speed) and bang in centre of frames.
It's taking the pictures at speed that is always impressive, it would take me 10 mins to frame things up and by then moments is gone
Thanks for posting the link, great to see those shots.

 

The trick is to get the shutter speed right, fast enough that you can track with the car and keep it sharp and slow enough to blur the background. That will depend on the speed the car is moving so it takes a couple of shots to work out the right speed. For the focusing you'd need to have the camera in a continuous focus mode or to manually set focus beforehand and press the shutter as the car crosses the point on the track you focused on. As for the framing I don't have one of those 10 grand lenses that can magnify quite this close so the shots are cropped in to get the composition right. Modern cameras have such large sensors that you can crop in quite a long way and the resolution is still good.

 

Looks quite manic in some shots, you can see why it is called a circus. Reckon you enjoyed your day.

 

It's been out a little bit now, what have people made of Drive to Survive?

 

Still in the middle of it, I think I've watched 4 eposides so far. I felt sorry for Bottas after the win in Russia, he obviously went to the garage to find mechinics to celabrate with, but they had all gone. He looked hurt after that, and him saying he's not a number 2 was a bit painful, almost saying it to himself.

The Ferrari eposide was fun, Vettel in a very playful mood and getting some digs in here and there. I don't know how much was editing, but was still a little bit of fun.

 

Great photos!

 

Either I missed an eposode or they completely glossed over George standing in for Lewis. Well he was mentioned in ep9 where checo came from last to first.
It was interesting to see how they edited things with the benefit of hindsight to ramp up the drama.
Only 4 days to go!

 

Not watched any of it yet, but did see he posted this. So guessing you didn't miss it.

 

While it was great to see Checo going from last to first somehow I think they missed what was a great story. I guess they didn't have a crew at Merc at that time but I thought this year they had crew with each team as covid stopped them roving.
Pity not to see George's great drive being hyped up even more.

 

It was one of the stories of the season... and they missed it.. That is quite ridiculous.

 

Something I've never really considered, of the last 10 season openers:

3 Wins by Vettel
2 Wins by Bottas
2 Wins by Rosberg
1 Win by Kimi
1 Win by Button
1 Win by Hamilton

The season opener winner has only won 3 out of the 10 last championships.

 

They sort of missed Williams out really. They barely mentioned the sale at all, I didn't notice the team saying goodbye to Claire or her guiding the cars out for last time. In fact more I think about it more it seems strange. I wonder if they didn't put a crew in Williams, even so the sale was not an instant thing everyone knew when it was happening.

 

Just watched the Grosjean episode, utterly maddening how they drew out the fire. You could have been forgiven for thinking Grosjean was in the burning car for 10 mins+, not 35 seconds or so. From the on-screen portrayal, it looked like Magnussen had time to get back to the pits, park up, go and get changed, and then watch on the screen before his team-mate was out of the fire. They repeated sequences of the fire whilst Grosjean was in it, at one point cutting it off just as you could see him moving, then played a load of clips of marshalls with extinguishers tackling the blaze - clearly from long after Grosjean was clear.

And then once he's out and you see him in an ambulance...let's just tell a story about Perez's childhood, and his poor race that day, and we'll come back to Grosjean after.

I know Drive to Survive isn't necessarily aimed at ardent fans, more of a casual audience, but they seem hell bent on alienating anyone who does know anything about F1. There's some interesting behind the scenes bits, but the way they edit clips together and use the wrong audio for dramatic effect, I can't trust that anything I see/hear is genuine. Trying to engineer that Sainz and Norris don't get along was laughable.

 

The mistelling of a story through the editing that takes place is common in all television coverage, sport and otherwise. This is why the most influential people are the press Barons, they engineer public perception and thereby opinion.

While writing, don't anyone forget the clocks go forward this Saturday, wouldn't want anyone to miss the start.

 

Thanks for that. I would have probably forgotten.

 

If you didn't know Extreme E is live on ITV in the UK at 12pm on Sunday. Should be interesting to see how it all works.
I think it's also on BBC iPlayer, sorry again in UK.