The drivers were supposed to arrive at the display spot at 2:45 pm today. There were scores of people, all waiting to have a glimpse of their favorite driver. e crowd had gathered long before the drivers were scheduled to arrive. Kimi and Giancarlo made a splendid entrance on their Ferrari (not the Ferrari F1 car, of course). Kimi was in the driver's seat and they just whizzed past us on the Orchard road. After the split second yet great, glimpse of the red Ferrari, there was a short wait of about 10 minutes for them to park the car and enter the display area.
Ferrari Stall in the Background
The kind of rush that I saw today was never before seen by me in Singapore. All the fans, were excited and almost all of them had their cameras in their hands. There was a huge round of applause when the drivers made their appearance on the stage. I was there standing in between people, with a camera in my hand and screaming out to Kimi. This was the first time that I had seen a Formula 1 driver up close. The drivers were about 5 feet away from where I was standing. Kimi on the left and Giancarlo on the right (to me). There was a small interview where were directed to the two drivers. They were asked about the excitement of the night race, the brilliant fight that these two drivers had two races ago (Fisi was in a Force India then) and also about the beautiful city of Singapore.
Once that was done, there was a small game held between the two drivers. There were pit-crews who had assembled a fuel rig close to the car. The competition was to see which of the two drivers could fuel the car the fastest. Utter fun !!! Fisichella 'bravely' asked Kimi to go first. Kimi took close to 1 minute to understand the exact way to fuel the car (he does believe in getting to know the rules completely before he ventures into any kind of a competition :P ). There was a loud cheer when Kimi started 'fuelling' the car. Once he had finished it was Giancarlo's turn to show that he could beat the Iceman. Though I dont remember the exact timings, I remember the fact that Kimi won the competition by being 0.03sec faster than Giancarlo. Poor Fisichella. Once the winner was announced there was an even louder cheer for Kimi than what there was before. That was one fun event!
After all this excitement, it was time for the drivers to leave. They were escorted into the mall and were briskly taken away to the parking lot after which I can only presume they zipped away in their Ferraris. Once the drivers were gone, the barricades were removed and we were able take pictures of the car from up close. After some 200 odd pictures of the car, I moved on to the official Formula 1 store. Though I did not buy anything, it was great to look at the (overly priced) merchandise. One cap was S$59 and a T-Shirt was S$169! I did have some fun by taking lots more pictures over at the merchandise shop.
So, thus came an end to the exciting day which I will never forget in my life. I have heard that there are similar displays from other teams across the city, but, I do not know if the respective drivers would be making an appearance those places. On Saturday (two days from now), I will be going to the circuit to have a feel of the Formula 1 atmosphere. I guess I now know what to expect and how it is going to be like.
