Radio Australia Today Editorial

Having fun at Albert Park

25 March 2010

Yesterday (Wednesday) we did our first recce at the Albert Park Formula One Grand Prix track.

We’ve posted a few photos in this blog to give you a look behind the scenes at what was going on. Have a look.

Certainly the drivers were out in numbers, and we managed to interview a few for the broadcasts on Thursday and Friday in the lead-up to Sunday’s big race, including a man who has good memories of Albert Park, the Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi, who debuted here last year and got some valuable competition points.

I chatted to Sebastien in the area known as the “Paddock”, which is directly behind the pit buildings. At the back of each team’s section is a door which leads out to a grassed area and a separate cafe for each team. I did a walking commentary, which I’ll play for you on the program.

Of course no trip to the track is complete without a visit to where the action is: the Pit Lane. Producer Beverley Wang was quite taken with the Ferrari section.

But one of the highlights of the trip was THE car. The De Lorean that featured in the Back to the Future movie series was right there outside our broadcast spot. Our tech guy Ryan Egan, Beverley and I were thrilled to get a chance to touch metal with a genuine icon (well actually only parts of it were geniunely from the movie, but who cares). The man who owns it now also bore some resemblance to Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). I have interviewed Christopher Lloyd, who is a very charming man, and this De Lorean man was just as nice. He even let me sit in the beast.

So join us at the track for the fumes, the stud-hero drivers and the De Lorean guy. It’ll be our best GP broadcast ever.