What I mean is the atmosphere (this is the tifosi's land, but there were also lots of Alonso fans, Raikkonen fans.... and BMW fans!) and what this GP represented: the outcome of important events and news, such as the Michael Schumacher retirement, the Midland buyout, Kimi's future, Alonso's qualifying controversy, the supposed Bridgestone cheats....

As I said, maybe it was not the most exciting race to see on TV, but in the circuit it did seem so, even from the beginning of the weekend the excitement was very clear, reaching its climax when Alonso's engine blew up, and also when after crossing the finish line Schumacher announced the end of his long career in F1.

But lets start from the chronological beginning of my experience...
It began on Saturday morning at 7am, when after having a breakfast i left to the circuit by bus. It took us about half an hour to go from the centre of Milan to the circuit, located in a forest park adjacent to the small city of Monza. The entrance at Vedano looked promising, as it was a beautiful sight, and to see many fans from many teams entering the circuit is very colourful and rewarding, and makes you feel the magic of F1, what makes it special.

We first went to the F1 village, placed behind the main straight tribune, which had many stands, not only of merchandise, but also cars exhibition such as the Mclaren MP4-21 painted in the 2006 eye-blinder colours, the Ferrari F248 and the Red Bull RB1. Of course the temptation was too big for me, and apart from doing lots of pics from them, I bought a big BMW Sauber flag that is now placed in the middle of my room as a very respectable symbol, and that attracted many looks, as it was almost an isolated in the middle of a sea of Ferrari and Renault flags. The other temptation there were the numerous beautiful girls (mainly italian 'ragazzas') working for the stands, which offered you the opportunity to have a photo with them... and also a kiss hehe.

After all that we went to the Saturday grandstands I had booked: Alta Velocita, located in the first Corner, the 'Prima Variante' chicane, which offers probably the best spectacle and photography opportunities. So there we were as the 3rd Free Practice began. It was not very exciting at all as it was just a practice, no action at all, and i had already seen F1 cars in action at Cheste circuit in Valencia early this year, but nevertheless still good pics were made.
After that 1 hour session, we had a break before the not very known Porsche SuperCup, which proved to be as exciting as F1, even if that day it was just quali. There were hard braking, overtaking, spins and crashes; and the sound they made was very enjoyable, even if it was much less louder than F1 or GP2. So from now on I consider that competition a must see, it really does worth it.

So all this preparations happened before the big show: the Formula1 Qualifying. As you know, the beginning of the 2 first sessions is not very exciting, with just the Super Aguris and few other cars running, but as the session advances and gets closer to the end the excitement increases, reaching a moment when the traffic almost looks like the traffic jams in a big city. The first session already had an incident when Yamamoto has a puncture in his left rear wheel in the middle of the main straight. I was lucky to see it, as he entered the 1st turn, but run wide. Even with that tyre very damaged (he finished with only the alloy), he still jumped over the kerbs! That’s courage!.... or craziness hehehe. This caused a red flag for awhile, but nothing serious at all.

Well, no more incidents happened in Q1 and Q2, and there weren't many big surprises in the positions, apart from Kubica setting the best time in Q2. The last session was completely different, as all the cars started at the same time, creating a real procession, with a BMW Sauber leading the queue, followed by a Ferrari, and then the rest of cars.

At the begining some cars overtook slower ones in order to get clean air, and Alonso tried to do that when following Schumacher, but he had a bad braking in the 1st turn in order to avoid crashing the German (who was going very slow at that moment) and run off, and afterwards had a puncture due to the dirt in the run off zone that had probably fallen from a Porsche or Yamamoto. Surprisingly, Schumi was not penalized for blocking Alonso...while the Spaniard was a few hours later sanctioned for supposedly doing the same with Massa. But I don't want to go into that controversy.

Alonso returned to boxes, as well as other cars did lately, in order to get a good time in the last 5 minutes. What else can I say that you have not seen? The final positions were quite logical, for the exception of Kimi stealing the pole to Michael by just 2 thousands of a second, and the brilliant third place of Heidfeld.

When the session happily finished for me (this were the best qualifying results for BMW so far), I had to go back to the bus, but before that i passed through the VIP parking, and guess what I found.... a Ferrari F40 (its very rare to see), and Aston Martin Vanquish, a Ferrari 430 and a large etcetera of incredible cars.
We took the bus back to the Hotel, and the traffic jam was stunning, but understandable. It took us 1 hour and a half to get back to the centre of Milan.

*Here it finishes the first part of my report, talking about the whole Saturday.

Part2 at http://www.f1network.net/main/s491/st104245.htm

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