Heat Is On As Racers Prepare

The Age

Saturday March 15, 2008

Ben Doherty

WITH just over an hour of practice left Mark Webber pulled his car to a stop at the end of pit lane.

As he might have as an impatient, newly licensed teenager on the streets of Queanbeyan, he revved his engine noisily at the red light halting his progress, anxious for his turn.

Then, just as his engine whined into ear-splitting territory, the green light was his, and he shot into the straight, only the slightest wobble in his back wheels marking his departure.

Within five minutes his car was back in the pits, but with something fairly significant in his back pocket: the fastest time of the day. It wasn't to last.

Twenty-three-year-old British wunderkind Lewis Hamilton has a keen sense of timing, not all related to how quickly he can pilot his machine around a track.

With barely three minutes of the 90-minute practice session left, Hamilton shot round the 5.3 kilometres of Albert Park track in 1 minute 26.559 seconds, nearly a full second quicker than Webber.

On a track where the temperature reached 47 degrees, Hamilton demonstrated a coolness few others could match yesterday. At Albert Park yesterday, everyone melted.

Across the parched, once-grassed hills and in the exposed seats of the grandstands, people bought, begged, and stole every piece of shade they could.

A few brave souls, mainly Jim Beam drinkers, took their chances sans shirt under the Melbourne sun, though they appeared to have retired by late afternoon (perhaps to hospital). And with the formula one cars on the track, it brought the hard-core enthusiasts out.

Scores wore caps and the assorted livery of their favourite teams, others carried flags. Ferrari, of course, was again the crowd favourite.

Grown men walked around the track with prancing horses painted on their faces without a hint of self-consciousness, while kids tried their best to emulate their heroes in go-karts on a tailor-made track.

© 2008 The Age

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