5 great years of Grand Prix racing in Singapore, and 5 more to come! Yay!

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events, F1, felipe massa, ferrari, fireworks, Marina Bay Street Circuit, night race, photography, singapore, singapore grand prix, winning, work

I woke up on race day to the awesome news that Singapore’s renewed our contract to hold the F1 race till 2017! What a reason to celebrate!

When the race first came to Singapore, I attended as a big fan, and it was a huge moment for me. In the last few years, feel like I’ve grown beyond that to become almost an ambassador for the sport – welcoming members of the media to my home race, taking them closer to the teams and the action, showing them the technology that makes things work and also getting my friends to love the sport that I find so wonderful. And you will have to agree that the race has done amazing things for Singapore to put us on the world map. My city sparkles every time the race comes to town, and I know that while we whine about the road closures and traffic, its also a really proud moment for us to see our city look so beautiful under the lights.

Amazing aerial shots taken by my colleague @liruchan of our glowing circuit. She watched the race from the 1-Altitude, clearly one of the best places for a view to take your breath away.

I always say (with plenty of conviction, too!) that I think Singapore is the best race on the calendar. Other than the fact that it’s held in my city, it really is so different from the rest, and so easy for people to enjoy. Think about most other races held on the big, famous race tracks. No one but a true race fan would make the trip out and spend a whole weekend doing nothing but watch cars zoom up and down. And as far as street circuits go, ours really is in the heart of the city. There’s plenty to see and do outside of the races, and off-track entertainment is truly second to none. It isn’t exclusive the way Monaco is, so EVERYONE can really enjoy themselves thoroughly, without having to be rich and famous. And of course, there’s the whole romance of racing under the stars. Its such a winning combination. I know for a fact that all my friends from work would never have watched a race in their lives if ours hadn’t made motorsport as accessible and appealing to the masses. Now, we’ve got a few die-hard converts that will attend the race year after year.

We normally sit at the Bay Grandstand, which I feel gives the best value for money. There’s not many places in the circuit park that places the cars against such a stunning view of the city’s waterfront, with Marina Bay Sands, the Merlion, the Fullerton Hotel and the city skyline all in the backdrop.

I must give full credit to the race organizers and volunteers, who clearly pulled out all the stops for the fifth installment. They made it bigger and better than before with the live acts, had all bases covered in terms of people moving and security, amped up the post-race festivities and fireworks, and really put an amazing human touch to things. I was handed an ice-cold isotonic beverage as I walked towards the concert stage on the track! Cherry on the cake for a strong race overall by Ferrari. The guys did well to finish where they did considering where they were during the race, especially Felipe who really clawed his way back up from the tail end.

So much to look forward to for the next few years, and already I cannot wait. But meanwhile, let’s just celebrate an epic 5 years as the host of the world’s only night race. They were totally right about it – nothing else comes close.

Thank you Singapore, for another beautiful and unforgettable race! See you next year!

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Meeting Marc, Felipe and Fernando in Singapore – Go team Ferrari!

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client, F1, felipe massa, fernando alonso, ferrari, formula 1, marc gene, night race, shell, singapore, singapore grand prix, work

It ALWAYS happens that after a weeks or so of absolutely manic preparation, the red-clad team from Maranello swoops into town and before you know it, they’re gone. I can’t believe that we’re already at the final day of the weekend.

I’ve written before that I was raised a Ferrari fan by my dad, who started us watching racing since I was about 12. Naturally, at that age, I was only in a position to follow suit, but quickly became team agnostic a few seasons in. But while I like to say that I’m a fan of the sport and the drivers, my work in the past few years has made it really hard not to come to want a win for the guys in scarlet that I now see as MY team.

Because of work, I’ve seen the drivers every year for the past three years. This year, they even got really involved in the LEGO project that I’ve been working so hard on for the past few months.

Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso getting acquainted with our LEGO replica of the 2011 car. It looks STUNNING and they were pretty stoked themselves! Pictures courtesy of @manndy, who was in the room with me and clearly had a height advantage when taking these shots.

While I never really get to spend more than a few minutes with them, its really hard to not feel a little closer to the team and what they do, and correspondingly, want to see all that effort pay off for them on the track. Especially since this very race will be the 500th one that Shell and Ferrari will race together as technical partners. That’s HUGE.

I also got to meet Marc Gene, who drove the special 500th Race 458 Italia in the Ferrari Challenge today. The car, I must say, looked absolutely beautiful up close!

So as I rush down to the circuit for the last and most epic evening of the weekend, here’s a big good luck to the boys in red. We’re rooting for you!

My flying lap on the Marina Bay Street Circuit

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client, driving, events, F1, ferrari, formula one, fun, night race, singapore, singapore grand prix, work

Wow. Thursday was great and brutal all at the same time. Great because we had an amazing turnout, I got to meet so many people who’ve been names in the “To” field of my emails and see Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso in the flesh. Brutal because well, it was bloody exhausting! After all those hours on my feet, I got home past midnight with just enough strength to manage a shower before collapsing in bed without even bothering to shut off the lights.

While the session with the Ferrari drivers was as expected, the height of our activity, there is so much behind-the-scenes logistics that happens before and after. And I was lucky enough this time to be able to sneak in a couple of laps around the track – virtually of course – behind the wheel in the Shell Professional Simulator Experience.

Full disclosure again: Shell is one of my clients, which is why the Singapore Grand Prix is always particularly action-packed for me.

Simulators are getting more and more important for driver training and practice, for a few simple reasons. One of them is race regulations limit the amount of practice a driver can get on the track. But more than that, street circuits like Singapore and Monaco are pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to get any practice on at all. In the absense of the real deal, the next best thing for a driver really, is to try to recreate the experience, virtually.

That’s what we got to use to test drive my own city’s track, and boy was it an experience indeed!

The SPSE was a crazy set up that included the chassis of the 2009 Ferrari, a McLaren steering wheel, a 180-degree panoramic screen and cameras all around. This things moves, shakes you about, and fights with you for control!

The race simulator we drove on was created specially by a company based in Modena, working exclusively with Ferrari. Here’s what I got from my 5 minutes on the track:

1. Visibility in an F1 car is absolutely terrible!
Already, I’m so short that I can hardly reach the pedals or see out the cockpit. The lovely guys operating the machinery had to fashion a special booster seat for me out of a bag filled with… dirty clothes?

Innovation at work – the special booster seat the guys made just for me so I could actually see AND reach the pedals.

You start out looking straight at a wall – the pit wall, and as you get onto the track, it quickly becomes obvious why drivers need time to get familiar with the circuit. A lot of the time, I found it difficult to correctly discern if corners were heading right or left as I was heading into them, making it super difficult to pick the right line. I was lucky to have Anthony as my instructor, and he taught me to watch the signs and distance markers going into the corners, so I did manage to figure it out in the end. These aren’t on every corner in real life though, and I’m sure that with the speeds and g-forces, it’s gonna be even more difficult to know where you’re going.

Anthony was my awesome driving instructor. He was super patient teaching me how to use the controls and giving me tips on how to get around the track. I probably couldn’t have gotten around without him telling me exactly what I needed to do. In fact, my laptime nearly doubled when I tried it without him (not to mention the 3 would-be fatal crashes)

2. The circuit and the roads do not look alike AT ALL.
Yes, the backdrop of the city is familiar, in fact, recreated with stunning attention to detail to resemble the real thing as far as possible (apparently to 5mm of accuracy).

All familiar landmarks on the circuit – the city skyline, the Esplanade, and the Singapore Flyer, created to be almost completely true to the view on a real flying lap.

I’ve driven the route countless times in my own car, even under the race lights, but put up the barriers and reverse the flow of traffic and I have no idea where I am on the track at all, except for the time I drive under the Bay Grandstand. I had the opportunity to do quite a few laps, but no matter how many times I went around, things really didn’t get much more predictable.

3. I have no future as a race car driver
Anton, the guy that builds these machines, is an absolute fountain of knowledge on stuff related to F1. He told us about how race telemetry is analyzed remotely due to current restrictions, about how each driver likes their car set up, how weight affects the speed and performance of the car and so much more. Did you know that every 10kg makes a 0.3 second difference PER LAP??? That’s huge! Only regulations make it such that weights have to be added to even things out – but of course, being able to add them at different points in the car makes a huge difference in handling. He also told us how important strength was in racing, which is probably why there aren’t many women at the pinnacle of the sport. I was told that I would need to work out more to have any hope. Then again, since most of the champions-to-be are already champions in the karting series and other race circuits when they are aged 10 or 11, I think I’ve missed the boat on that one. Looks like its gonna be a life as a PR professional for me.

I clocked a time of 2.36 minutes on my fastest lap around the Marina Bay Street Circuit. For a sense of where that is, Alonso rode the simulator a couple of hours before I did and clocked a 1.47. Marc Gene, who is driving in the support races for Ferrari this weekend, did a 1.55. I’m actually quite pleased with myself. The simulator also spat out really comprehensive race telemetry, which I had no idea how to read or decipher.

This is probably the only sort of race telemetry I’m ever going to get in my lifetime. Awesome, cool shit, though I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was looking at.

Anton told us that a lot of this telemetry from the drivers actually feeds straight back to engineers at Ferrari who analyze it remotely because of limitations that restrict the number of people you have doing that on track. Fascinating stuff, though I hope that my own stats would never somehow fall into their hands. It’d be terribly embarrassing!

At the end of it, he turned it on “self-drive” mode to kinda well, give me an idea of what I actually should/could be doing, and boy was it different! Think I’ll just stick to it as a really expensive video game for an overgrown child like me. I could ride that all day if only they didn’t have to tear it down and head out of town tonight. Had a great time guys, and I hope you come back next year!

The Edelman Singapore Shellettes with the lovely Anthony and Sam from Crunch in London, and Anton from All in Sports in Modena. Thanks for the massively fun time and being so patient with this squeeing, screaming child.

For another hilarious write-up on the experience of driving this simulator, check out Vernon’s piece in TopGear Philippines.

Here’s Alonso showing both of us how it should be done:

Alonso does the REAL flying lap

Grand Prix fever is go!

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client, events, F1, ferrari, grand prix, lego, night race, PR, shell, singapore, singapore grand prix, work

Every time race weekend rolls around, I’m reminded how much of a lucky little girl I am – to have a chance to get so ridiculously close to the action for something that I’m super interested in and excited about! It’s the one week in the year where I LOVE working overtime. I don’t care if its midnight and I’m still clocking hours at the Pan Pacific, or if I’m on my feet all day sorting out minute logistical details. Its the one week in the year where I’m doing something that everyone else wishes they were doing, and for these few days, I suddenly become the person that everyone wants to speak to, instead of being the one that has to beg people to hear me out.

Full disclosure: I work in a PR agency, and Shell is a client of mine. Their technical partnership with Ferrari is the reason why I get to do all the cool stuff every time the race rolls into town.

Part of the job means I get to spend double the time that most people spend in “race weekend” mode, simply because the weekend starts earlier for me, normally the moment the circuit starts to close. I was there last night as road access shut down, and all the barricades and walls were locked in place. Our pre-race engagements kicked into gear today, a long way away from the track, but a definite sign of good things to come in the next few days!

What a welcome! Was greeted by this (not so) little guy when we went down to do a filming session with the local TV station to kick off the Grand Prix weekend. Full disclosure: I work in a PR agency, and Shell is one of my clients.

This whole partnership with LEGO and Ferrari has got to be one of the cutest and best things I’ve gotten to work on this year, though it seems like I’m the only overgrown baby that’s excited about all this. I’ll probably need that to power me through the day though, because tomorrow, things really heat up. As the only day where teams can really concentrate on non-race related stuff, Thursday is always a really busy day for driver appearances, photo calls, media sessions and the like. We’ll be no different of course, and I’m crossing my fingers that tomorrow will go smoothly, and that this race throws up more awesome moments just like the last ones did. More to come soon!

Singapore Grand Prix Survival Tips

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events, F1, formula one, motorsports, night race, racing, singapore grand prix, tips

So, since I’ve been for every single installment of the night race, here’s a quick round-up of some small things you can do to make your time at the race track easier and more enjoyable!

1. Dress sensible

No matter where you plan to watch the race from on the circuit, you’re probably going to have to walk a great deal, very often over rather challenging terrain. Sometimes there will be gravel, sometimes grass, sometimes metal grilles and always a crazy crowd trying to get to or away from the track.

Sensible footwear – my number one piece of advise for a bearable trip out to the track.

Wear flats because you’ll quickly regret choosing anything elevated, and dress in light clothing. The route to any section of the track is outdoors, so there is no way to avoid getting hot and sweaty, just on the journey to your seat alone. Ladies, leave those heels at home. And if you really can’t, at least wear wedges so that you’ll have that little bit of extra stability to navigate all them obstacles!

2. Focus on the essentials

Leave the heavy cameras, bottled drinks, umbrellas and all that unnecessary stuff at home. Everything you need is available at or near the track at one of the malls in the area. All you need is CASH – so that you can buy what you need. So make sure you’ve got some of that. Also, make sure to pick up a Survival Kit when you enter the circuit park.

Race weekend must have. Image courtesy of Qing Moments

This costs $2 and contains a poncho and earplugs, both of which you will only realize you really need when it is too late. Even if it doesn’t rain, the poncho makes a great groundsheet for when you’re watching the concerts!

3. Plan your shopping

From experience, race merchandise does go on sale towards the end of the weekend – but only the most ridiculous, XXXXL type sizes. I know they can be pricey, but hey, so are those soccer and basketball jerseys when you buy official merchandise. The show and the shops only come to town once a year, so if you see something you like, get it early, because the Asian friendly sizes normally run out pretty quick.

There will be countless stalls like this one scattered all over the track, selling pretty much the same stuff. If you see something you like, don’t wait it out! Stock for the nice stuff does run out! Image courtesy of Ankur Banajee.

There is also little point checking out all the stalls to find out the most competitively priced one if you already know what you want. Prices are pretty aligned across the stalls, except for sale merchandise.

4. Invest in technology

Because of the sheer noise from the engines, it isn’t always easy to hear the race commentary from the speakers around you, especially if you’ve got earplugs stuffed in your ears. Buy one of those radio headsets – this will give you much clearer race commentary, and you won’t need to miss any of the action if you leave your seat to hit the loo or get another beer. If you’re willing to take it one step further, rent a Kangaroo TV. Its a little portable screen that shows the race as it is seen on TV, with additional options to check laptimes and other cool race telemetry and stats.

I gave Kangaroo TV a try for the first time in 2010 and it CHANGED the way I watched the race. It really is the ultimate fan experience and an absolute godsend if you aren’t seated in front of a big screen. A weekend’s rental will likely set you back upwards of $150, but in exchange, you’ll get unmatched race coverage.

There’s a ton of camera angles, options to follow your preferred drivers, and all sorts of cool stuff you can’t get on the big screen on TV. This is great for a full view of all the race action even if you’re in a seat that is not situated in front of a big screen – and more! If you’re thinking of getting either of these, make sure to do them on the Friday/Saturday so you get maximum usage. Especially for the Kangaroo, which is rented out for the whole weekend – you only return it after the race is over.

5. Eat out

Drinks and food at the circuit are pricey and also far from great. Its gotten better in recent years, but a routine I like to keep is to have all my fun in the circuit park in the late afternoon, and then head out for dinner and the use of a nice air conditioned toilet in the evening, before coming back for the race.

Sukiyaki at Marina Square is one of our favourite things to eat before braving the long walk with the crazy crowd to the grandstands. Least I can have is a whole lot of meat in my tummy first!

Don’t feel like you need to stay in all the way. There’s a ton of great food just minutes away from the gates. In fact, options outside are normally better, more comfortable, and haven’t had their prices jacked up.

Hope these tips are helpful! See you this weekend at the race!

Gearing up for the final installment – 5 great years at the Singapore Grand Prix

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client, events, F1, felipe massa, ferrari, formula one, motorsport, night race, scuderia ferrari, singapore grand prix, sports, work

Anyone who knows me personally knows how excited I am every time its Grand Prix weekend in Singapore and the F1 entourage rolls into town. I almost literally start counting down the months, starting from the day the last race ends, delighting in every small milestone – when artists are announced, when tickets go on sale, when the scaffolding for the lights starts to go up around the Padang, when our passes are ready for collection, when they start testing the lighting, and you can see how it goes on.

This started pretty much from the first race, and has now become something I plan my schedule around every single year.

Awesome times with my lovely sister, my #1 race weekend partner in crime. It was our deal to attend every race together – until she moved to the United States to pursue a career in golf. Now she’s stuck with sucky Nascar!

My dad introduced us to the world of motor racing when we were kids. You could say we were raised Ferrari fans in what I will always consider the “golden era” of the sport – of epic battles between Michael and Mika, Ferrari and McLaren, of team orders, race strategies and all that good, GOOD stuff. Things evolve so quickly, but there’s just something about race weekend. This ridiculous excitement and energy that just courses through the heart of the city the moment the floodlights hit.

In fact, without being dramatic or superficial, the first race was one of my absolute proudest moments as a Singaporean. No one knew how the whole night race concept would take flight, especially at the start. Everyone whined about traffic and road closures. But as I sat in the grandstand watching my city magically transformed into something I never imagined possible, and beamed all over the world for people to see, it felt like such a special moment for me and my country.

We spent the first two races young, jobless and carefree, before things had to change. I started work, and she moved to the United States to pursue a career in golf, making it really tough for us to keep that same date on the calendar, year after year. But thank goodness we managed to get together for one final hurrah between us – and the start of more unforgettable races, thanks to my awesome kickass job.

Shell is a client of mine, which is really, almost a perfect fit in a profession dominated by women, seeing as how I’m one of the rare few who love driving, cars and motorsport. Imagine my delight when the first race rolled around and I found myself seated right across the Ferrari pit and starting grid, all in the name of work. She’d flown back to watch the race with me and ended up helping out a whole load that weekend, and the least I could do was make sure she was right there with me.

My most epic race night ever, right at the heart of the action opposite the pits and in front of the start / finish line. For years, I’ve watched on TV in envy as people would flood onto the tracks at other races. This time, I had my turn to do so, under the floodlights of my home GP with the best company ever – my sister and the original Shellettes!

Our seats at the Pit Grandstand were AMAZING. We even got to see a flaming Heikki Kovalainen roll to a stop in front of us before jumping out and extinguishing his burning car, all on his own! Such a hero. For all the extra dollars you have to pay for those super premium seats, the experience in Zone 1 is truly different from the rest of the circuit park. Now if only those $1,000 tickets were within my financial means, I’d be right up there, every single year.

But well, with work, every race throws up a new way to see the race. This time, I brought my colleagues to see the sport I love so much, and my dad – the man that introduced me to Formula 1, to watch his very first Singapore Grand Prix. But more than that, I got to meet a certain young Brazilian driver, whom I’ve been following since he first started racing alongside Kimi at Sauber way back when, way before he joined Scuderia Ferrari.

I was hoping that someone would have had the presence of mind to run to the front of the insane crowd and get a shot of me sharing the stage with Felipe Massa. Nobody did, and I thought the moment was lost forever, until I saw this photo published on TODAYonline the next day! So unbelievably lucky.

Like I said, I’m lucky that I love motorsport, and my work gives me so many reasons to be excited every time F1 comes around. The last four years of grand prix racing have each been awesome and special for a different reason each time. I already have plenty to look forward to in the week running up to this final installment of my “home” Grand Prix, with more exciting stuff with team Scuderia Ferrari on the cards. But above all, I want to have watched this fifth race knowing that it will not be the last time that I drive on the roads I know so well lined crash barriers and track markings, bathed in light bright as day even under the night sky, nor the last time the scarlet cars zoom around against the backdrop of our city skyline. The Singapore Grand Prix really is WAYYY too good to let go. So let’s go for one more round, shall we?