I will be there....have tickets for 11W bleachers, but found out tonight one of our group has free tickets to the Grandstand and pit passes..... SUCKSTOBEME

Just got settled into my hotel in Round Rock. If anyone is around for dinner tonight PM me and I'll get you my contact info.

Thursday
 

Hi Chris,sorry can not do today...in the work for tomorrow evening, are you coming ?

I've been talking with Jim (lowyder993s) about getting together. I've been so busy with work getting things wrapped up for this trip I think I missed a few key threads.

well in downtown Austin, between Congress and Colorado is the Fan Fest, they have 15 stages and life music performance....Aerosmith is playing on Friday and Vettel from Friday through Sunday,drinks served by Red Bull and spoiler alert from Kimi and Lotus....Guys we have a great weekend.

David and I are on our way up 290 right now. Hope to meet up with jim sometime this weekend.

Has anybody seen a target lap time from the team simulations? Curious to see how the times from the computers line up with the reality when the cars hit the track.

Hotels

My wife's project manager lives here in Austin. Apparently when hotel rooms went on sale, a large number of entrepreneurial locals booked as many hotel rooms as possible and tried to resell them on Craigslist. Apparently the city council promptly passed a law that said "hotel resellers" had to be licensed and any hotel rooms held by unlicensed resellers must be forfeit. They didn't want Austin to get a reputation. This explains why my rooms was cheaper booking two weeks later and some of the phone calls I got from my hotel.

Anyway, I know some people have had hotel problems already. There are still rooms available at the Microtel Inn & Suites in Round Rock where I am staying.

Yea but u are in round rock.

Eh. I'm having a great time sitting in the hotel lobby, drinking free beer (I'm intentionally forgetting what I am paying for the room), and discussing the finer points of of Silverstone vs. Cirque du Jacques Villeneuve vs. COTA (theoretically, of course).

So far I've counted 3 McLaren hats, 1 Force India shirt, and no Ferrari anything. ;)

Vettel laped in 1:37 today. Pretty much has almost .75 on the field already.
Awesome day at the track. Weather is perfect huge crowd for FP2 this afternoon. Who says F1 doesn't have a huge following in the states?!
Little room for improvement on the crowd transportation logistics but overall not bad for 1st day putting on a show!
Bring on qually!!!

I got to Round Rock this p.m.
Any suggestions on where to park for the trinity and 15th shuttle?

We drove out from Houston today. We are staying at a nice little historic B&B in Bastrop. Our parking is 20 mile from the B&B and the lot is only a couple of miles from the track. I'm glad I won't be fighting the crowds coming from Austin in the west. The room isn't bad either, only $350/ night.

Just outside of Houston a guy was working hard to get through the traffic on I10 in his Ferrari f430 spider. It sounded really good. We ran into him 40 or 50 miles later as he had stopped to experience some Texas hospitality from a state employee. We saw several state troopers on the way out which is telling because I didn't see any last weekend on the exact same drive.

I also signed up to ride in the three seat F1 car again Mon morning. Hopefully it doesn't rain.

6 words:

Helmet Cam

Barf Bag

Have Fun

Yeah, I'd love to get video while I was riding. I don't get motions sick, so no barf bag. I did it last Sun. It's definitely big fun.

I got here in time to see the historic gp qualifying. These are great seats, T9. I can see what must be half of the track if not more. I get to see a couple of great corners and some straights. I'm very stoked.

Well, has Alonso's million dollar sim at home helped?



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1353179256.jpg

Grosjean will drop 5 penalty spots for the gearbox change the other day. Interesting Vettel is maxed 10 kmh slower trap speed on the back stretch.

Just finished watching qualifying, (taped it). It's the first time I've seen the track and facilities and have to admit it certainly looks like it was pulled together very nicely. Hasn't it been only like two years?
Looking forward to the race.
Might just try to make it down next year.

First race weekend in Austin is all Vettel. His 100th GP start.
Fastest in every practice session and now every qualifying session.

Stick a fork in Alonso, he's done. Vettel, youngest 3 time world champion.

The facilities and logistics seem to be great. The only line that I stood in or saw was to buy overpriced shirts, hats, etc.... The racing was excellent. I'm really glad I got to see the historic gp today.

I had a great time and met folks that had come from all over the world. Some had flown in for the races from Europe, etc..., and some had DRIVEN 800 - 1500 miles to watch the racing. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.

+1
Totally second this....

Great people, impressive track and preparation and the racing top notch! We will be back next year, fo sho!


Fan zone in downtown is massive fun and downtown Austin the perfect backdrop as well.

If any improvement it would/could be getting around the track from entry gates out to the far end. From grand arena area out to T5 esses and hair pin; inside the track out to these areas only has one path, which doesn't support the volume of people (especially the older folks, disabled etc) needing to get out there and back to main gates. But I digress....

No biggie, there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house.

Pretty proud of our peeps in Austin TX, representing the USA good and proper! Well done guys and gals.

Vintage F1 cars were off the hook cool. '63-80s. Nice era in F1 to see and hear!

Have lots of pics and video to go thru.

Wish we could have organized a Pelican event too. Maybe in the future.


Btw. Watch out for the vacation rental ads. Not what they seem is an understatement. Thread for another day.

Hope everyone at home is enjoying the event.

J

Yep Henry, red bull and Vettel are looking strong again. But don't expect Alonso to roll over either. A few other drivers may be there at the end too.
Plus the track may have some surprises for a few drivers. Slippery and apparently easy to misread in spots.

Vettel still has to win the day, and I'm hoping it doesn't work out that way. Want to see it go down to the wire just for the fun of it.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Cheers Richard

PS. really enjoy the reports from you that are there, Thanks

I've not read all the posts in this thread so forgive me if this has been touched on already. Why if F1 wants to break grounds into the US audience would they come back, after a 5 yr or so absense, on the same day as the Nascar Finale? Are they that arrogant?

F1 races on Sundays. This is the second-to-last race of the season. F1 fans will watch F1, and NASCAR (or whatever they call it these days) fans will watch NASCAR. I kind of doubt that the promoters of F1 saw NASCAR fans as potential F1 fans. Considering the 130,000 fans at the race and the full house all weekend, I'd say they planned this well.

Interesting to see that Vettel had the fastest sector times for all three sectors during qualifying yesterday. Unless he gets into some sort of trouble, I don't see how he can lose. He's got the field covered.

Just a note regarding next year tix purchase strategy; there are some of the best track view areas between the grandstands and bleachers all along the track. For instance between turn1 and front straight there is a fantastic area there where you can see the front straight up to T1 (right in front of you, literally), between grandstands 7 & 8, grassy area turn 19 etc. what I'm saying is save the $ instead of buying bleacher seats by buying GA and bring picnic blanket and as example park yourself 20 feet from turn 12 between bleachers 7&8 and enjoy epic views!

Lots of fantastic grassy areas or picnic spots. End of hairpin is another, watch the F1 cars pass in front of you at 165mph and late break overtake right in front of you!

Lots of good spots.
Paddock club and pit passes....$5,000!!! Lame! Other series make accessing the drivers and pits much more affordable. But again this is F1.

Btw. Spoken with lots of hard core NASCAR fans who chose to be here not anywhere else this weekend.

Just saying.

Jason

Well it seems you guys put on a very fine show in Austin. Well done!

And who can complain about the race? Great result. No crashes. Lots of wheel to wheel racing.

Not sure about that dickey maneuver to move Alonso up on the starting grid. Maybe someone can explain this to me.

Great race!

Way to go Austin! Beautiful track

I agree, great race.

It must suck being no. 2 at Ferrari. Out qualify your team mate and the 'tap on the shoulder' comes, "Excuse me, Phillipe, but we have to change the gearbox on your car. Yes, you will start further back the grid, but you understand."

Ferrari have never been shy about team orders.

I'm sure if Mark had qualified better than Sebastian there would have been no 'gearbox change'.

I can understand it, it still makes me sad.

Best
Les

What an impressive track. Sections reminiscent of other great tracks; lots of runoff room... couldn't ask for more.

And a great inaugural race.

Bravo, Austin.

Les, totally agree and spot on! Saw part of the race then found out what Ferarri did with Masa to move Alonzo up on the grid and got really perturbed.

What a POS move, Alonzo cannot drive faster so the team messes with the gearbox on Masa's car to get him a 5 grid penality moving Alonzo up in front of him.

Exactly. A fun race to watch with lots of action. The track looks really good & it was great to see the stands filled.

Ian

Great race! Glued to every lap. Amazing views and corners - can't wait to see it live one day!

Don,

Nothing like it in person versus the television.

I have seen them around the world and you have to make it to Monte Carlo sometime, as well as Spa. Now that Austin is in the mix, this should be a "must see" as well.

Joe A

David and I are headed back to Houston after a great day at the track.

Absolutely fantastic job Austin. Ya did good.

Jim, as always great meeting up with you.

Actually, to piss you off even more, Ferrari didn't even mess with Massa's gearbox. They just broke the inspection seal on it to trigger the penalty.

Like Ferrari's tactics or not, it's a team sport and what they did was legal. The team is trying to win a driver's world championship. (Though, interestingly, it used to be the constructor's championship that was more important at Ferrari.) And given the last couple of garbage seasons from Massa (notwithstanding these last two or three races), Massa's pretty lucky to even have a seat at the Scuderia. Just like the Scuderia is lucky to have a guy who's willing to be a clear cut #2.

And, it wasn't that they wanted to move Alonso one more position forward, it's just that doing what they did allowed both Alonso and Massa to start on the clean side of the track. Had Massa started in his original position on the left side, he may have been in the same position at the first corner anyway. For sure, he would have lost positions.

Argue all you want about the nature of it, they ended up 3rd and 4th and that was as good as they were going to do today. Not a bad result, for the car setup they had. Had Pirelli brought softer rubber, they may have had a much more competitive car than what they showed today.

Now that the race is done...

Wild Ride: The Sordid Saga Of How Formula One Racing Came To Texas - Forbes

Frankly, I don't see how they will ever get their money back.

JR