Sunday I attended the Formula One race held in Shanghai with a friend, his work colleagues and over 100,000 other fans. This event really turns out the European expat community and it was the largest collection of Westerners that I have seen since being in Shanghai. The fans of F1 are very committed and dress up in wildly colored wigs, paint their faces and hoist 1 meter square banners of the racing teams, their home country or the manufacturer logos. Our seats were at the end of the starting lane as the cars head into a hairpin S turn. The speed and noise of these machines (its kind of hard to really call them cars) was incredible. We had to use ear plugs for the entire race of 56 laps and 1.5 hours. I was rather clueless to the sport and who drove what car for what team and what manufacturer's engine they use but the fans around us knew it all. I sat with another F1 novice and we tried to keep up with all the info but finally decided to give up and simply cheer when any particular car tried to pass another. There were no wrecks on the day but there were a couple of spin outs and "paint trading" on some of the closer turns. Lewis Hamilton outlasted Sebastien Vettel to end Vettel's winning streak at 2 races but Vettel still retained the overall lead on the season. I have posted some pictures on the blog if you are interested and even a video of the cars coming into our turn.
