I love Formula 1, and this sideblog is where I express my appreciation for it. If you can't already tell, I am an ardent Ferrarista, and have been such for many, many years! Main blog: thearkenstone Twitter: kateSF7
Yup, Seb was pretty happy with the trophy I gave him at the Malaysian GP Fan Forum :) I’m glad I took these shots of him, especially the top left photo - you can see his little smile of delight :D In the bottom two photos, I think Checo asked him about it and he explained. Checo definitely made a comment of some sort, from what I remember!
I got up at 8 a.m. again, worked out, went for my meeting in the morning, and then took off immediately after it at about 11.50 a.m. to get to the circuit. In previous years it was always very jammed, especially at the traffic light just before you turn into the circuit, but it wasn't that bad this year. I reached the circuit by about 1 p.m., and by the time I got in it was about 1.10 p.m. I did a quick pit stop, and then headed to find Cleste, who had gotten Kimi's autograph like she wanted! I got to the seats just in time for the drivers' track parade to start. That was nice. I waved at all the drivers I liked. Most of them waved to the crowd, but Fernando didn't, the bad fellow. And just look at the car Marcus Ericsson was in! I want it SO MUCH.
Then some strange performances were put on, but there was no air show! I've only just realised that. How sad. Anyway. Then the cars lined up in their grid positions, and suddenly I saw Nico running like mad and I got worried, but it was only for a toilet break. Seb walked after him more sedately.
After that, the race finally got underway at the scheduled time, and we went mad. Well, I went mad when Seb crashed out. I could see it happening right there and it was AWFUL. But later on it was nice to see a few overtakes right in front of my eyes, and of course the others on screen. But I wasn't really into the race once Seb crashed out. Of course I was cheering Kimi on, and at one point I did think we had a chance of getting on the podium, but as we know now, he didn't. But Kimi did his best as usual.
And the worst part was seeing that Seb would be investigated after the race, and then finding out that he has been given a penalty for Japan? What is wrong with the stewards, seriously? Max has gotten away with so much worse; this was purely a racing incident! Can you name me one driver who has never been caught out in the first corner? It happens/ And Seb even apologised to Nico after the race, which is more than Max would ever do to all the people he has caused collisions with, so I really do find it uncalled for when he labelled Seb and ‘idiot’ and ‘crazy’ over team radio. Someone needs to tape his mouth shut.
At one point during the race, I was talking to Cleste and we were both standing near her seat, when suddenly a camera appeared to the left of my face. I didn’t notice it initially, then I did, and I smiled at the camera, and then carried on talking to Cleste as usual. The cameraman just stayed there for ages, focussing on us. People were trying to get up and down the stairs, and he was right there filming us and blocking the way. It was hilarious. I had to move to make way for people to go past, and they were so curious, wondering what he was doing, and they were also apologetic for getting in the way. But anyway, I didn’t see our faces on any screens, so that feed definitely did not get chosen.
Cleste and I were pretty disgusted with the race and left as soon as Kimi crossed the finish line. We were walking out while Dan was on his victory lap. No offense to Dan - I like him, and I like Nico, but I just cannot feel happy without a Ferrari on the podium. And I refuse to stay back and thus be caught in a traffic jam for the sake of anyone but Ferrari drivers. The traffic jam after last year's GP was massive, but I didn't mind that because Sebastian won for Ferrari! Of course I had to celebrate. I came prepared this year to climb over the railings and onto the track - I wore shorts beneath my skirt, just in case - but that wasn't necessary after all.
The strangest thing was watching Red Bull fans leave at the same time we did. I mean, you guys just got a one-two, do you not want to celebrate with your team? So odd. But anyway, I could hear Les Toreadors (aka champagne music) as I was reaching my car, so yeah, I got out of the circuit pretty quick! The shoeys must have been taking place as I was driving out. So glad I didn’t have to watch that live. :P But anyway, there was no traffic jam, and I got home pretty quickly. After dinner, I washed and unpacked everything, and everything is done now. I just have to post this, and also the Merc items that I want to give away. I have too many Merc items and I'm not even a fan.
Oh, by the way, the GP weekend made me lose weight! How awful. My lowest weight is usually around 46.4 kg, and that's early in the morning, when I'm the lightest. I just weighed myself just now - in the middle of the day - and I was 45.4 kg. It just shows you how starved I was this weekend to lose an entire kg! I'm always worried when I lose weight - I fear that I've lost muscle mass instead of fat, but it can't be muscle mass because I didn't stop exercising, I only skipped Saturday, but I will make up for it by doing a double workout day later this week.
But anyway, it was a good weekend in that I got to meet Seb, give him the trophy (we all know how much he loves trophies, right?) and actually get kissed by him - which I was starting to wonder if I'd just imagined, since I didn't see any photos of it until today.
And I swear, he initiated the kisses, not me, okay? Though I look (unfortunately) extremely delighted to be reciprocating... I wish they had more shots of this because I would like to see the expression on my face when he first leaned in. This was the second kiss on the left cheek, so I already knew what to do by then. I must have looked a bit shocked during the first kiss on my right cheek! The worst part of it all is that I’ve just realised that I can literally count on one hand all the men who have ever kissed me. My father, an uncle by marriage, a friend of a friend from Europe, and Sebastian. That is literally it. Isn’t that just awful?
But other than that, for Ferrari it was a meh weekend race-wise, and I certainly hope they'll do a lot better at next year's Malaysian GP! Forza Ferrari!
I left home at about 6.20 a.m., and reached the circuit slightly after 7 a.m. Traffic was beautiful, and so was the sunrise. When I reached the circuit, I did not head for the grandstand entrance, but took a detour to the paddock entrance, as I did last year. I like to do this a lot. Theguards saw me and just let me drive in, without batting an eyebrow. Maybe it's because fans with paddock passes do go there as well. But I always turn out at the end because you have to go through security and I would never get past that, of course.
I parked my car, and then went off to get myself prepped. I hadn't done my hair. I had only slathered on many layers of sun protection at home - tinted sunscreen, Vitamin E oil, more sunscreen, and a bit of powder. Yeah, I'm crazy. Did that all three days, haha. And oh, I also used some Betadine on some pimples that I could feel were about to flare up. After spending quite some time primping, I went to wait for ticket collection to open, but it was far too early yet. Then I saw a notice saying that I could print my order confirmation for my parking ticket at the Welcome Centre. I'd forgotten to print it out at home earlier - I'd only remembered my race ticket, and then I didn't have any more time since I only remembered it late on Thursday night. I have a very uncooperative printer, and I didn't want to waste my beauty sleep fighting with it.
But it's great that Sepang provides an internet connection and printer for us to print out order confirmations. And without charge, too. Their free WiFi was acually pretty good the entire weekend. Good job, Sepang Circuit! Anyway, I got it printed after a while, then asked a man there about the pit lane walk which was happening that very day - contrary to what a girl from the circuit had told me a day prior about it being on Saturday. And that girl was terribly unhelpful - she kept telling me to check the website for the latest information and I was like, yeah, the website says Friday, and she insisted not, so I decided to just be prepared for the pit lane walk anyway. Crazy girl. The man was so uch more helpful.
So after that I made my way to the ticket collection counter again, and that's where Cleste and I met! We chatted until the counter opened, then got our tickets, and were basically inseparable the entire race weekend.
I enoyed looking at the classic car display. Marcus Ericsson's was the best. What a lovely blue! I didn't think much of the Ferraris there though...
I don't have much to say about FP1 and FP2. It was nice to sit directly in front of my boys for FP1. We went to queue for the pit lane walk wrist tags when FP2 started. Wrist tags were given out at 2.45p.m., though it had been stated 3p.m. But it was a relief for those of us who had been queueing in the hot sun since 2.15 p.m. I brought an umbrella which had no UV tint, so it was still very hot. When we finally got our wrist tags, we sat down opposite the McLaren garage to await the time when we could queue again for the pit lane walk at 6.30 p.m.
People starting queueing at around 5p.m. (or earlier? I can't remember) and so we joined them. Then later, towards the time it was scheduled for, we were told to go to another gate and wait there, so we did. And then suddenly everyone started moving through that grandstand back to where we had just been earlier, and we followed, but now we weren't ahead in the queue anymore. How dumb was that? And then we stood and waited and waited and WAITED. It was horrible. I wanted to die on my feet. It was about 6.45 p.m. before we could enter the tunnel, and then we queued up on the other side facing the paddock club entrance, and it must have been about 7 p.m. when we were finally let into the pits. But there were no drivers. The mechanics were busy working on their cars. I did like having such a close view of the Ferrari garage and pit wall, but I'd wanted to give Sebastian the trophy then, and he wasn't there. It was a bit sad. There was a nice sunset though, and at least it was cool then, in the evening. I wanted to shout Forza Ferrari to cheer on the mechanics, but I was too shy.
After that, we left and it was massively jammed on the way home. It took me at least 1 hour and 15 mins to get home. Probably more. It was probably because of the long weekend and because it was a Friday. I ate two apples that I'd brought (I ate two apples every day, actually), and gobbled lots of muesli. I got home after 8 p.m. After unpacking and repacking my bag, I was about ready to die. I slept very soundly that night!
I had over eight hours of sleep, only getting up at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. The rest of Saturday's doings has already been recorded.
Basic summary of what happened here: I gave Seb a silly handmade trophy for winning the fan vote for Driver of the Day at the Singapore GP a fortnight ago. Seb was delighted with it, which made me extremely happy, and he kissed me on both cheeks. Full story of my thoughts throughout the Fan Forum under the cut.
The fan forum was pretty amazing. I got there at about 9.30 am even though it was scheduled for noon. About six other people were already there. Cleste had been waiting since 8am! Anyway, we just stood there the entire time and made friends with the emcee Aush (weird name :P) and got presents from him. He gave me a goodie bag for answering what day it was yesterday, what even? Lol. He kept poking fun at me because I said I didn’t like Usher, lol. There was a clown performance scheduled and he was like, there are no clowns here - or wait - there's one, a clown who doesn't like Usher. Mean!
Anyway, the drivers finally came - RBR first, then Nico Rosberg arrived early (before Hamilton as usual - Hamilton is always the late diva) and signed autographs. He signed my fan! Yay 😄 But the pen wasn’t working well oops but anyway it got signed. He sort of made a face and an 'eh' shrug and he tried to see if the cap could be taken off the other way, lol! In the end he just gave up, but he tried and he was reeally lovely.
Then Hamilton came, and wouldn’t sign anything for me even though I held out the poster I'd won earlier. He probably could tell that I actually despise him, being all dressed in red! But hey, I could have given the poster away to a friend who likes him if he'd signed it, right? He just didn’t like me, I guess. It's okay, the feeling is mutual, and I already got his autograph on Wednesday, hehe. But he seems to be continually telling people off at events. On Wed he was like: 'Can you cut the music? We don’t need that'. Today he was like: 'Don’t zoom into my face', and he pushed the cameraman away. Though tbh the cameraman was being a bit annoying so I don’t blame him for that.
Then… the Williams drivers came, I think? Yup. Just checked. Actually they came before Hamilton, I just had more to say/complain about him. Haha! I got Felipe's signature on part of my F1 ticket (you can see it in the photo above), and I gave him a note in an envelope and he signed it, lol, but I was like: 'that’s for you'! So he has it now, yay. You can see him holding the envelope in this photo:
Idk what they said though; none of them said anything particularly interesting, but Felipe did ask us for ideas for what to do after he retires, lol. But but but! Someone asked Lewis if he would do a shoey and Lewis was very disapproving of the idea, and I totally agreed with him! He said: 'Do you know how much sweat goes into these shoes? After the race, you could wring the sweat out. It's disgusting.' I'm not quoting him verbatim, but that’s about what he said, and finally, there's something Hamilton and I agree on!
Then Kimi came early! And he was very chilled and laidback even though he had the most cheers and chants, lol. He isn't called the Iceman for no reason, hey? He answered some questions but there wasn’t anything interesting, I'm sorry! Can you tell I just want to skip to the bit about Sebastian already? Lol. I can't yet.
The Force India drivers came on stage next. Seb was slow because he'd been signing autographs. But he arrived later anyway. Hulk was extremely good-looking close-up. Like, woah. He radiated beauty and I think he knows it. I think Nico R is beautiful too, but Hulk is on another level. Hulk was sitting in his chair surveying everyone, and since I was in the front row, he actually looked directly at me, made eye contact, and smiled a most glorious smile. I was very embarrassed and shy so I smiled back and then broke eye contact haha. His smile is too powerful for me to handle, I'm sorry! But they didn’t say anything of note either. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention because Seb appeared after that and I had a burning question for him!
The emcee asked Seb a question, then let the fans ask him questions, but not me :( One fan asked Seb a question, then the emcee went back to the Force India guys for some more questions.
Then it was back to Seb! And the emcee again gave the mic to other people - twice! I was so upset because I'd been waiting there aaaall morning so I waved desperately at the usher and called his name and he told me to hold on and promised to pass me the mic, yay. So after that, the mic came to me. I tried to greet Seb in German - idk if it worked but he seemed to acknowledge it. I said 'wie geht es Ihnen?', which I've been practising for the past few days. He didn’t respond to that but he nodded in understanding. Then I went to my question. It was something along the lines of: 'Seb, do you remember winning Driver of the Day at the Singapore Grand Prix? But you didn’t get a trophy for it? Can I give you a trophy I made for you?' His face changed and he looked happy and he was like, sure, and he came towards me. While he was coming towards me I just made a disclaimer: 'It's quite ugly, I'm sorry!' But he came down, and I gave him the bag, and he took the ugly creature out, and he smiled very happily, and then he tried to give me back the paper bag, but I was like, 'no, there's something else in there for you too, there's a note for you and one for Kimi and the entire Ferrari team, so you take the whole thing', and he did.
And THEN ( I think it was then - I'm so excited and getting my chronology a bit mixed up!) he suddenly leaned forward over the barrier and my brain just could not compute what was happening. Then he kissed me on my right cheek! And in true European fashion, he leaned back and then went for the left cheek, and I kissed him too. I didn’t the first time because my mind was full of question marks, haha. But once I realised what he was trying to do, I reciprocated, of course. I mean, if Sebastian Vettel wants to kiss you on both cheeks as a mark of gratitude, what else can a girl possibly do other than kiss his cheeks too? Though he was very stubbly and I could feel all that stubble. I prefer clean-shaven men, but oh well, I'll take Seb in all his forms!
And then he turned around to have a photo taken with me, and he held the trophy quite proudly, haha! He was really pleased with it. What a little boy he is at heart! At one point he was going to go back on stage, but then he thought the better of it and came to me again. I think it was before we took the photos, so he turned back and came to take the photos. After that he held the trophy and the bag in his hand - I don’t know if it was then that I told him about the other stuff in it?? Argh. I'm all mixed up! (Edit: Ok, after looking at more photos, I've got the chronology. He took the trophy, was going back up, then I called to him and asked him to also take the bag. Maybe we took the photos before that? And when did he kiss me, idek anymore! Sigh.) But anyway, he went back to his seat and then smiled very happily and said something to Checo while trying to put the trophy back into its bag. And then he put it down by his seat, answered more questions, and that was it for the fan forum!
He signed autographs but I didn’t get one, maybe because everyone thought he'd paid quite enough attention to me already. And tbh I wasn't attracting any more attention to myself, I didn’t want to be selfish since Seb had limited time and there were others who wanted his autograph.
BUT during the entire time he was signing autographs, he kept firm hold of the bag with the trophy. He didn’t hold it by the handles, but squeezed the top of it, so I'm afraid that's going to be a squashed trophy, oops! But he held on tightly to it during photos with other fans on the right of the stage, and while he was signing autographs for others, and basically all the way out. I think he was really pleased with it! And I was pleased that he was pleased :D
I actually wanted to give it to him yesterday at the pit lane walk, but none of the drivers were there. Too busy celebrating at The Dog and Button, I suppose! Meanies. But I'm glad I could give it to him today. He actually gave a fan something. A fan asked for his cap and he just chucked it over. I didn’t ask for anything but he kissed meeeee. Never getting over that, sorry not sorry. And oh, I don’t know what he smells like. He just didn’t smell offensive, which is sufficient for me! Lol. He smelled good, I think? I just never know what people smell like, or even if they wear cologne. Unless it's really strong cologne or perfume, which makes me want to gag. He doesn't wear that, fortunately, or I'd have had to hold my breath when he was standing close.
Anyway, I am so happy! Mission accomplished! Notes passed to everyone they were meant for. I hope Seb passes those notes to Kimi and the Ferrari team. I'm so happy I was at the fan forum, and that I had such a good spot in front. I didn’t even wake up that early today - only got up at 8 a.m. after an extremely good night's rest (nearly 9 hours - I needed that after yesterday!), and left home at about 8.35 a.m. Then I got here very quickly because there were no traffic jams. Though I did see a car on fire on the way to the circuit! Reminded me of Kevin yesterday. Really scary. But anyway, FP3 now - Ferrari 4th and 5th which isn't so great, so hopefully they have something to pull out of the bag during qualy. I'm all alooone now! Trying to calm myself because I'm still a wee bit excited, haha.
After FP3 which I spent all alone in Citrine - I was good for once and actually sat where I was meant to, lol - I sat on the ground under a tree for a bit. Ferrari did well for FP3, and then they were absolutely horrid for qualy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I got into the pit grandstands and sat alone until nearly the start of qualifying, when Cleste messaged me to come over. I couldn't get anything done because I was worried about being chased away from my seat, but there weren't many people around. There were lots of empty seats then. Not on race day though!
I was so tense during qualy and kept shaking my leg a la Christian Horner. And then my boys got 5th and 6th, UGH. I went home but got home pretty quickly. It was soooo jammed on Friday, but not on Saturday, so yay! :)
And that’s the end of my story for Saturday. Will post the other two days tomorrow if I’m not lazy.
Today was a great day. Well, it started out not so great when I had cramps at 3.30 a.m. and had to take a painkiller, but I slept peacefully after that. I got up, worked out (almost done with T25, y'all), and got dressed and set out at about 9.45 a.m. (and grabbed a quick breakfast - muffins and another painkiller). But the was such a horrible jam in my town! It took me an HOUR to leave my town, can you believe it? A journey that usually takes 15 mins took four times that many minutes today. I wanted to get there early, but I guess not! The event was scheduled for noon, but I had been asked to get there by 11.30 a.m. as I was one of the winners for the #AskNicoLewis contest. I spent nearly two hours getting there, but I reached at around 11.40 a.m., so that wasn't too bad! I parked in a nearby housing estate because there was no more parking. I initially turned into the wrong Petronas pertrol station, but fortunately the right one was just on the next road :D
I got there and got given my lanyard and my presents - two t-shirts, three pens, and an umbrella. Then the wait commenced. I chatted with another of the winners most of the time. Then I saw food being put on the tables all around, and I was eyeing them and wondering if I would get any. Suddenly we got offered Starbucks coffee! And then also the food! There was a Rotiboy coffee bun and some sandwiches. I love free food.
I'm not sure when the drivers finally turned up, but I guess it was after noon, since Malaysian events are never on time. Nico came in first, and he was so nice and smiley and friendly! And then he went straight into Rotiboy and took photos with the Petronas people haha. Then Lewis finally appeared. He got more cheers than Nico, but not from me :P Then they had a Q&A on stage, and they answered questions from the Petronas host, and later the questions from fans, but mine wasn't one of the questions >:(
At one point the man (some Petronas bigwig) was praising the Petronas fuel, and Nico was like: 'Buy Petronas! Don't go to Shell! Shell makes you go slow!' And I was like: Bad Nico! Haha. At another point he mentioned Ferrari winning last year and he said that they won't let that happen again this year and everyone cheered except me. The travails of being a Ferrari fan at a Mercedes event... You can watch the video here if you're interested. (The funny bit is at about 4:10)
Then Nico was sent off to do the pit stop challenge. See - the thing is I was asked if I wanted to do the pit stop challenge with Lewis or the meet and greet, so of course I chose the meet and greet! I didn't know that Nico would do the pit stop challenge too! Pfft. Anyway. I went and watched it, and Nico had some draws and lost some, haha. Then I was afraid I would not be able to pass Nico a note I had written for him (and another from Marj), so I waylaid Georg and asked him if he would pass it to Nico for me. He was really nice and said that he would.
When Nico came out of the tent after the pit stop challenge to do the Q&A with the media, so many fans thronged around him to take selfies, and I wanted to, but his team was shooing the others away, so I didn't. Anyway, I knew I would get to do the M&G later, so that was fine. But Nico was so ultra nice and gracious to everyone the entire time, and never showed a hint of annoyance. Unlike *coughs*his teammate*coughs*. So then Lewis came out to do the pit stop challenge and I just followed Nico in. I was so tempted to ask Nico a question when they asked if the media had questions, but then before I got up the courage, I was asked to line up for the M&G.
Then the fun started! I met Lewis first, and I just asked him to sign something and thanked him, and he said 'you're welcome' quite pleasantly. I didn't bother asking for a selfie because I don't want a selfie with him, but Lily suggested that I take a selfie with him but make a face in it. I will consider that if I ever meet him in future xD
Then I moved on to Nico and I was so nervous! I wanted to say things to him but my mind went blank and I could only ask him to sign one of the cards, and then I asked if we could take a selfie, and he so obligingly went: 'Of course! Do you want me to take it?' And I gasped 'Yes, please!' very gratefully. He must have seen that I was nervous and carrying a lot of stuff, hence the offer to take the selfie. WHAT A SWEETHEART. And he didn't just take one, he took two, to make sure it came out nicely and that I'd have at least one good one if the first didn't turn out right. <3 It's here in this video at about 0:38. That's me in the black lace top. And after that, I was given another umbrella, so now I have two Petronas golf umbrellas, lol.
Anyway, what a nice day. I had a great time, and I'm glad I went! I did not expect to win anything, but I'm happy I did. Now I'm looking forward to the race weekend!
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