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Gate G row 1 seats 44 and 45 right on turns 11 and 12!
We went for the cheap seats and are very glad of that. Our gate is quieter and no hassle at all and we have a terrifically close up view as you’ll see if the videos upload. We have simplified our journey by cutting through the very beautiful 12th century Old City, discovered a fabulous restaurant and can see that this city loves its street cats.
This post covers the two days of Free Practice Sessions and Qualifying told in pictures and film. Here goes:
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| We live near the blue marker and alight at the last stop on the red line. There is a photo below of the last stop entrance/exit. |
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| A sliver lining on being directed to the wrong metro stop. A beautiful building! |
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| An example of the art on display underground at the metro |
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| Therese receiving wrong directions |
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| Educating us all on metro safety |
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| Found the Daniel Riccardo banner mentioned in Episode 3 |
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| Our view of bend 12 |
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| Coming from turn 11 is either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri |
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| And takes turn 12 with ease. A lot don’t! |
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| Got to love this t-shirt referencing Gunter Steiner’s utter utter frustration with his rookie drivers who, on the brink of taking 1st and 2nd places, had a fight about the order and took each other out! 😱 - watch it in one of the seasons in the Netflix series F1 - Drive to Survive |
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| Max Bull |
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| Look who found us! Canadian Laurie from our Azerbaijan flight |
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| Old City beauty |
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| Pierre Alpine |
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| Old City beauty |
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| Yuki RB |
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| Esteban Alpine |
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| A peep into a kitchen along the way |
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| Our restaurant in the Old City |
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| And again |
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| DELICIOUS! |
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| Screen shots of running summary during FP2 showing lap times and tyre choices. Gathering all of the data they can in preparation for race day, they test soft, medium and hard during these sessions. Our seats are at about the 56-59 second mark of the track |
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| Lewis Merc |
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| Old city sunset |
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| Nico and Oliver Haas |
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| Daniel RB |
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| Oscar McLaren |
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| Old City with peeping flames Towers |
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| Valtteri Sauber |
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| Jack Alpine awaiting baptism 2025 |
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| Zhou (looks like Sauber are letting him go) |
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| Carlos Ferrari |
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| Lance and Fernando Aston-Martin |
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| Gorgeous gates to the Old City |
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| Sergio Bull |
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| We keep bumping in to people we know! Therese and the Ferrari son made it off the crowded train but Dad and I didn’t! So while we went for a ride, son and Therese chatted. Son lives here and goes to a private school in Istanbul, speaks excellent English and they discussed refugees. |
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| Alex and Franco Williams |
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| Lando McLaren |
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| George Merc |
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| Our restaurant |
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| Turn 12 and into the straight |
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| Looking back to turn 11 |
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| Beautiful people just stop for a chat, curious about visitors |
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| Our restaurant. Totally delicious dinner |
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| Charles Ferrari |
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| Flame towers by night from the old city |
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| This city is beautifully lit at night. Soft and exciting |
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| Our fabulous taxi home was a Lada, beautifully and proudly cared for by this man. He loved our enthusiasm for his car |
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| 😍 |
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My fav is Estaban Alpine....took me a moment. Beautiful Helen Annie
ReplyDeleteHe looks so innocent there, but in his deviousness he ruined Lando McLaren’s chance to achieve a good spot on the grid…
DeleteVideo snippets came through fine. Good seats really.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a hard, medium and soft test?
ReplyDeleteLove that I’m watching car racing videos in bed 😀 🏁
Therese can answer this better than me but as I understand it Refers to the tyres each team can choose. Compulsory is one pit stop and tyre change but they can strategise for more. The soft tyres are the fastest but in these conditions might only last 5 laps. The mediums are longer lasting but a little slower. The hard tyres are long lasting but the slowest. During the FP1-3 sessions (free practice) they will test different tyres for how they perform on Baku’s track then strategise. The teams have limited numbers of each tyre and often they use up a lot of their softs quota during qualifying as pole and track order matters for the actual race on a narrow street circuit like Baku where over taking is quite difficult.
ReplyDeleteSo much more to this sport than I realised! Have to join you on the next one 😀
DeleteI’ve watched two videos and am reminded of my mother’s passing comment as she passed Dad watching the Bathurst 500 on TV (in his younger days he went every year) - “goodness that sounds like a swarm of blowflies!”
ReplyDeleteLoving your blog Helen!! And all those cats. Lis g
ReplyDeleteLove all the photos, Helen- looks gorgeous! And love the 🐈 s.
ReplyDelete