 MONACO 1998Monaco 1998 - crazy, funny, magical!
This year, I went to Monaco with two penpals, Brandon Johnston and Heather Lee, both from the United States. Our flight from Zurich to Nice was expected to leave Zurich on Thursday, 21st May 1998 at 10.40. But the plane finally started about one hour later, because we had no landing permission of Nice airport. It was my first flight with sandwiches and drinks being served while waiting for the start. The flight to Nice was o.k., but the landing was quite hard... And it took quite a lot of time, until we had our baggage, it seems, they worked slowly there... So, we missed the Thursday training of F1. Anyway, after we have put our baggage into our hotel rooms, we went to Monaco by train. But it took us quite a lot of time to bring our baggage to the rooms, because they were in third floor and there was only a very slow elevator, and only 5 persons were allowed in this elevator at once. But only 2 or 3 people fitted in... So, we decided to take the stairs - you can never do enough walking, like Heather said... O.k., when we arrived in Monaco, we passed some stands and went to the Paddocks. I was a bit disappointed, because there were high fences around the paddocks this year. It was not even possible - or at least not easy - to take good photos. It seems, that Bernie Ecclestone is spending most of his money for new fences... Well, the objective of my camera just fit in the lattice, so I made some photos of Jarno Trulli, Olivier Panis and Heinz-Harald Frentzen as well as a close-up shot of Adrian Newey. We also saw Jan Magnussen, Max Welti, Rubens Barrichello and Jean Todt. Later, we went to the pits and saw some of the mechanics working on different small things and checking the tyres. - And here is a photo of a Prost AP01, which was exhibited... In the evening, I wrote 42 postcards to some of my penpals, which took quite a lot of time... On Friday, there was no F1, but we watched the F3000-qualifying from the "Secteur Rocher". Right in front of us, Soheil Ayari had a spin, turned around - and crashed into the Lola of Kurt Mollekens, who was quite angry, of course... Later that day we saw Rubens Barrichello, Paul Stewart, who was phoning on a scooter and in the paddocks Olivier Panis again, who tested his seat and helmet. Also in the Paddocks: Bernd Schneider and Thierry Boutsen, who discussed with Max Welti and Mr Tiriac... Saturday, we finally saw the F1 training. We had seats in O-tribune. There, you can see the cars pass in front of the "piscine". It was not a very good place for taking pictures, but here is one I took of Olivier Panis. Short before the end of the morning session, Jean Alesi had a crash. Michael Schumacher had some problems with his Ferrari, too. We wanted to get up soon in the morning on Sunday, but it didn't work. We were too sleepy... Anyway, the train to Monaco was not that crowded as it was on Saturday, so it was o.k... We walked around a little bit and met Phil Hill, the World Champion of 1961, which was a nice surprise, as Brandon just bought an old postcard of 1962 showing him... Phil Hill signed our official programmes and posed for a photo. Then we went to the K5-tribune to watch the Warm-up. As usual, there was a F1-driver parade before the race. Everybody with a camera took some pictures, as you can see. The race was quite exciting, but both Prost drivers out again, as you know. Michael Schumacher crashed with Alexander Wurz and Heinz-Harald Frentzen with Eddie Irvine at Loews-corner. The McLaren drove their own race again. But David Coulthard had a blown engine, so, Mika Häkkinen was the only McLaren driver left and won without any big problems. Giancarlo Fisichella drove a good race as he already did in 1997 and was 2nd at the end. Eddie Irvine was third. Jean Alesi was out just some laps before the end of the race because of his gearbox problems, which happened right in front of us at the piscine, it was hard for him, as he was on 5th position at this time. Salo on 4th position was a big surprise. After the race, Mika Häkkinen made a nice wheelspin for us. Later, we saw Olivier Panis on a scooter, Toranosuke Takagi, who came out of the paddocks and signed my programme, Jacques Villeneuve drove by on a scooter, Esteban Tuero was discussing with a friend. Peter Sauber was not really happy with the race result, as you can see... Michael Schumacher had no time to give autographs. And because there were some fans waiting for him, he looks quite funny... Well, the fans had no chance, as Schumi was on a scooter. And here a picture of Eddie Irvine's mother with the cup won by her son, who finished third. On Monday we flew back to Zurich, but our flight was overbooked. So we had quite an exciting time there... Finally, we found a solution and I had the chance to fly to Switzerland in the cockpit, which was unbelievable and really interesting. And also very funny... The pilot and co-pilot were very nice and informed me about everything. They told me the names of the mountains and cities we flew over and told me the difference of thunder-clouds to other clouds, as we had to change the direction because of a big cloud in front of us... And as they gave me headphones, I could hear everything they spoke with airports and even the radio traffic between other airplanes and the towers... It was just very interesting... What's funny: they didn't control me at all. Even funnier: When we had to catch another plane from Geneva to Zurich, they controlled me and I even had to open my baggage, because they thought, I would have a knife or a revolver with me (!) and they controlled me from head to feet... Well, when we finally arrived in Zurich after 8 o'clock p.m., we celebrated Heather's birthday with some "Moët & Chandon", you know, that's the F1-champagne... We didn't really like it - it surely isn't worth the price - Now I know, why the F1-drivers splash it instead of drinking, ha, ha... O.k. - that was the short story - I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you are interested in exchanging some F1-photos, please let me know... |