As with the other recap posts, I am adding some photos from various parts of our trip. This post collects the first 2 days of our experience at the Canadian Grand Prix - the Pit Lane Walk (Thursday) and Practice (Friday).

Pit Lane Walk - Thursday

As described in the main post, the Pit Lane Walk experience left much to be desired. Not just the weather (it ended up raining on us), but also the insanity of it being open to the public. As these are photos taken on my better camera, I won’t bother posting any of the photos of the ridiculous crowds.

OK, maybe one or two… Looking back up the pit lane after escaping the crush of people.

These were the crowds around the Haas garage - one of the lowest ranked teams in the championship. You can imagine what is was like up at the start of the pit lane and the more “popular” teams.

A peek inside the Aston Martin garage, as they were working on the car.

Nicholas Latifi (white hat on the right), heading into the Williams garage. One of the two Canadian drivers on the grid.

The Haas car under assembly.

The medical car isn’t so bad…

Sebastian Vettel heading into the Aston Martin garage.

Medical car (left) and safety car (right)… so pretty!

Practice Day - Friday

Friday was a much nicer day - blue skies and sunshine rather than the rain of Thursday. We tried a different approach to entering the groups, and I think it was faster and less crowded. We also were a fair bit earlier, so that also contributed to less lines I think. We were going to spend the whole day at the circuit - watch all the different races and spend some time wandering the grounds.

Coming out of the subway, we headed up this hill and over to the other bridge across to the island the track is on. It was a much nicer walk, and it spread out the crowd a little bit.

THe view back at the City of Montreal from the top of the little hill.

Walking across the bridge, the crowds were not too bad. There was a bit of a delay getting through security, but it was manageable.

Looking over to the other bridge, it looked a bit busier.

Once inside, it was busy, but not overly so. And expected as practice is the day most people will skip.

THe Heineken beer garden. Sadly, this was the only brand of beer you could buy on site. Outrageous.

The casino - cool building and we had to walk by it every day.

We wandered the grounds heading over to our seats in Grandstand #1. It was 2.5 km from the entrance to our seats - a bit of a walk each day. But the view from the grandstand was good - we had a prime view of the start/finish line and the big 3 teams’ pits. We could also see up and down to the chicanes on either end of the pit straight. Not that we could really see the action there.

The view of the start/finish line from our seats. The elevated white box on the left is where the checkered flag will be waived from.

From our seats and with the zoom on my camera we could get a good look at some of the cars as they were being worked on. This is Lewis Hamilton’s #44 car.

Looking up to the turn 2 grandstand, you could see it was filling in pretty well for being early on practice day.

There were four “series” of races taking place over the weekend - Nissan, Ferrari, F1600 and F1. We watched bits and pieces of all of them over the course of the weekend, with the focus of course being F1, and to a lesser extent the Ferraris. The F1600s I had not seen before, but they were supercool little race cars.

The Nissans coming down to the pit lane straight.

Flying by in front of us - relatively speaking…

I have to admit it was odd to see Sentras and Micras racing around the same track as F1 cars.

The Nissans were ok - a bit strange to see those cars on the track - but the Ferraris were really fun to watch. They were almost as fast as the F1 cars, but there were a lot more of them, and they were being driven by regular people. It was hilarious to see these old (I’m assuming rich) dudes get out of these amazing race cars.

Early in the Ferrari practices, this teal car caught my eye for whatever reason. Probably because I like the colour. I decided to cheer for that one for the whole weekend.

A group of the Ferrari’s existing the pit straight into the first chicane.

After the Ferrari practice, we wandered the grounds of the circuit, both to see what else was going on and to find some lunch. We discovered that there wasn’t really much to see in terms of access to the track to watch the cars.

The “Fun Zones” had a decent selection of food and other stuff going on. These inflatable SUPs looked interesting.

You had to know I’d find at least one bird…

The casino seemed so far away.

It was time for F1 practice - Hamilton leaving the pits!

But of course, what we were there for were the F1 cars! As it was practice, and the cars are all new this year, there’s lots going on in the pits during this time. It was one of the reasons we chose to sit in this area.

Ted! Ted Kravitz, part of the Sky Sports F1 coverage team that we watch every race.

Ted and Jenson Button (former F1 World Champion) and now part of the Sky team as well.

George Russell heading into the garage.

George Russell getting into the car ahead of practice runs.

One of the McLarens out on the track.

An Aston Martin heading into the pit lane straight.

Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes coming into the pits.

Lewis heading back out for more practice laps.

The Red Bull team active in the pits.

Hamilton flying down the pit straight!

Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Sebastian Vettel’s’ Aston Martin.

Esteban Ocon’s Alpine.

Another Red Bull in for a tire change.

In the pits with the McLarens.

Pulling Hamilton back into the garage.

The end of that practice session for Hamilton.

The chequered flag drops to end the first practice session.

The stands continued to fill in throughout the day.

The camera guy had to go up and change the batteries on the wire camera above the pit lane.

After the first F1 practice session, and before the second we headed back out to wander and check out more of the grounds. We wanted to see the famous hairpin a bit more close up, and decided to try and watch the second practice session from that location rather than from our seats.

As we were wandering, we happened by the Media Tent where they were doing an interview with the Haas team boss, Guenther Steiner and the Hass reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of two-time F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi. We listened to the interview for a bit before continuing on and checking our more of the Fan Zones.

We made our way to the hairpin, where we did manage to get fairly close to the track, and were able to get a feel for the speed of the cars coming down the long straight into the hairpin and the incredible breaking ability of these cars. It was something to see!