Eeeeeeeaaaawwwwwwww....DHHAAUUMMM...

That's how it sounds when an F1 car goes down the start finish straight (at least that's the best way I can describe it)

Yesss...... I finally managed to get the tickets and am at Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix 2006.

As a follow on from the last post, I took the flight out of Singapore into KL. An extremely uneventful flight, mainly because it is a short 50min flight and the fact that it was Sri Lankan Air (which I have sworn never to fly again). The flight was delayed by almost 3 hours and I was generally loitering around at Changi (which is a great place to loiter...just wish I was at Terminal 2 rather than Terminal 1).

After landing at KL, I took a cab (RM40) to Sepang and approached the ticketing counter with some trepedition. I had the booking information (my pal had sent all of the information on e-mail last night), but it was still on his name and one of the criteria for collection was the passport as proof of identity. Luckily for me, the nice lady did not even bother to check whether the name on the ticket is the same as the name on the passport.

Ten minutes later, I was walking towards the gate with a big grin on my face.

At the gate, there were people checking if anyone was carrying food and mineral water into the grand stand. I dont think they were bothered with knives, but Mineral water was a strict no no. How else could they sell you the same thing at double the price? I had come straight from the airport and so I had the bottle of Glen Livet (15yrs!) in my bag. The friendly people of Sepang invited me to a drink on me after the GP was over :-)

Aah, the atmosphere of the GP. People dressed in their favourite team colours. Beer stands. Merchandising stores. Manufacturer displays. The works.

I promptly bought myself a Michael Schumacher Official Collection series Ferrari Cap. With the prancing horse and the #1 sign. Yea!

And then I sat down and practised some high speed photography on the much slower cars that were racing on the circuit as a prelude to what was coming. I think I did quite well, but capturing these cars is a lot different from capturing the actual thing.

The weather was hot and humid. I was sweating all over the place. Even in the shade, it was extremely hot.

And then there was Qualifying.

We were already told that Schumi had had an engine change and so would drop 10 places for the race. So it was interesting to see what he would do.

I have to tell you...the sound is deafening!

Imagine a bad quality speaker. Now imagine feeding 100W RMS to the speakers. The way they will crackle is how your ears feel every single time an F1 car goes past. The vibrations you feel on your chest are part of the F1 experience.

You can hear the cars change into 7th gear on the start finish straight and it's almost like the gear DROPS. The sound it makes is amazing. Like a big DHOM.

So the starting grid looks like this:

1. Fisi
2. Button
3. Rosberg (Well done! Fabulous for only his second GP)
4. Schumi (drops 10 places tomorrow)
5. Webber
6. Montoya
7. Kimi
8. Alonso
9. Klein
10. Ralf (also has an engine change...blew up during qualifying)

Let's see what tomorrow brings.