#thesis tag

for my first f1 (and professional race at all) experience, i was a flagger at pit entry in miami, which is the only track that assigns flag marshals at that position. most if not all other tracks do have flaggers at pit exit, so at least a handful will get full pit lane access, but the experience is completely different. in my case, we were across from where the cars get weighed, where the post-quali and post-race interviews happen, and the race control building.

during the drivers parade, marshals typically get permission to go toes on the line and stand trackside. in our case, since the back of the grid was right in front of us, we were told not to stand right outside our post but rather go to the painted divider between the pits and the track, where there would be other marshals and fia officials for safety.

we could, however, stand behind the grid up to a certain point before the cars drove off, so my blue flagger (🇨🇱) and i skirted the rear of the grid and took some footage before deciding we would have a better vantage point from the paint. he filmed videos while i took pictures. we were, again, toes on the line.

by the time the cars had made it around the circuit, we were buzzing. over the backup radio, 🇨🇱 heard about the merc and williams racing incident, so we were kinda bracing for whatever the other eight cars were gonna do as they neared pit lane and the media circus inside.

the alpine led the ferrari (a clause rarely uttered...) but the lego cars were life-size, meaning big, meaning they're not gonna go two wide into the pits. the alpine was far enough ahead that the ferrari wasn't going to make a pass, but that doesn't mean they weren't going to try!

you can see in the livestream how charles decides to swerve the car to fall single file behind the alpine, which was fine and what he needed to do, but in doing so he drove over the line and forced me to step back.

i'm the annoying person in an orange tabard pumping their fist here ʃ*(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭*ଘ and 🇨🇱 is kneeling to my right.

it looks far less dramatic in the video, but i remember being so surprised at the sudden movement that i genuinely expected to be bowled over. what emphasizes that in my memory is my own photos, which aren't zoomed in! i think the third one is cropped though.

and like, the woman shepherding the cars in would've probably gestured frantically at me to get out of the way if i had been in any real danger of a hit-and-crawl, but it's a much better story to say charles leclerc nearly ran me over with a giant lego ferrari ❤️ the same way i can pretend lewis was filming on his phone and there's a non-zero chance i exist in windswept pixels somewhere in his photo library ❤️

bonus treat: when the merc and williams broke down, the drivers were offered a van ride back to pit lane. george, alex, and carlos took up the offer. kimi, however...