We parked under the Casino, I sat my fat ass in the shuttle for the 300m trip from the Casino bridge to the Paddock Club, and resumed grinning like the village idiot. We arrived at the the Marlboro McLaren Mercedes-Benz VIP Club well in time for breakfast. The McLaren suite is at the corner of the Paddock Club overlooking the last turn before the pits. Looking to my right I saw the straight leading in the the pit in, looking 45degrees right, the left-right complex before the pit straight. All the teams had but one pit set up.
Nothing is as sharp-edged, nothing as uncompromised, nothing is even close.
The Ferrari is gorgeous in the flesh, a genuine mistress in red. The Jordan's new gold paint is beautiful live, rather than on TV, and the Sauber's blue reminded me of deep onshore Bermuda, with just a hint of Barracuda scale. The Ferrari's new nose didn't look quite right, as the tub is still the low nose design, but both cars had them, although Eddie would also use the low nose at one point. At a break in the sessions we chatted with a McLaren named Matthew Winter, the first of many wonderful meetings with the team's flesh and blood. We had no luck finding Greg, Dave, Pam and the baby.