Night Race in Singapore

Away from the track Singapore looked spetacular

The Singapore F1 Grand Prix is now over, the winner was Fernando Alonso, second Nico Rosberg and third Lewis Hamilton. This was an exciting event with many spectacular moments throughout that were made all the more exciting by the fact that it was the first night race. I am not a huge F1 fan and usually I would not sit and watch F1, but because it was here and it was my first opportunity to follow the events in the city where I live I was drawn into the action.

Alonso the winner!

Sadly I could not afford the tickets at the time. But I did go down to the circuit during the week before to marvel at the lights and how spectacular the city looked all lit up for the event. The track itself was just over 5 km with 14 turns throughout. The tightest coming off Anderson Bridge which the cars crossed at a speed of 150km/hr. Just off the bridge they had to turn almost 180 degrees and head back up the longest straight where they reached speeds of 300 km/hr. The lighting for this event was an amazing engineering feat it included 110km of cables, 1500 metal halide light projectors or one light every 4m along the track. Designed and built at a cost of $16 million. Down at street level the lights made it brighter than daylight and you weren’t aware of the bulbs.
The track as seen from a slotcar.

We watched the race at home. We watched in awe as Felipe Massa pulled away at the front of the cars from the start. The cars jostled for position on what was a difficult track to overtake on. Lap 15 we saw Nelson Piquet hit the wall and climb out of his car safely. Lap 17 Massa pulled out of the pit lane with the fuel hose still attached to his car. . Lap 50 Adrian Sutil crashed out of the race, the fourth retirement of the day. Lap 57 Kimi Raikkonen crashed into the wall and totaled the front of his car. He climbed out and walked away. Lap 61 Alonso took the checkered flag after 1hr 57min 16.304 sec. There was some great driving and a lot of luck involved in this race.
Raikkonen hit the wall Lap 57.

I think that the night race in Singapore was a spectacular event and I can’t wait for it to return to Singapore.
Ruth checking out the singapore track.