We witnessed Lewis Hamilton make history in Portugal as the race was brought to the Atlantic shores for the first time in it's history.  Portimao, famous for the beautiful beaches and picturesque fishing villages was now home to the F1 circus.  

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A covid safe environment was key to the success of this event.  Our guests stayed in self contained apartments in the town of Carvoeiro just a short 25 minutes from the circuit.  Transfers were not grouped on large coaches, instead opting for smaller bubbles which enabled us to keep social distancing in place and human contact to a minimum.  

At the circuit each couple had at least 3 seats between them and the next group and people were not sat directly in front of us. 

 

The event was busy, 30,000 spectators is a sizeable amount of people for a first time event however the circuit did very well (don't mention the traffic).  Each Grandstand had it's own food and drink stalls and a merchandise shop, our only issue on Qualifying day was finding shade on what was a very hot day in late October.   Qualifying was an exciting event with cars sliding about due to the new track surface and hot temperatures, the circuit was especially slick on the start/finish straight due to the fact that the support races operated a rolling start which doesn't leave any rubber down for the F1 cars to grip onto.  

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Race day arrived and the weather had changed somewhat from the previous day, coats and woolly hats were appearing from the locals as it dropped to a chilly 20 degrees centigrade.   We're not quite sure what the local police did on race day but they made access to the circuit very difficult, it showed their inexperience with hosting large events.  We're told the TV helicopter was picking up images of 3 miles of traffic with only a short time before the race began.  A valuable lesson learnt by the Portuguese authorities, especially if they want to hold this event with 90,000 fans in the future.  Luckily for us we departed for the circuit with plenty of time to spare.  

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Anyway back to the racing, Sainz got himself out front in turn one and Kimi seemed to overtake pretty much the whole field on lap one without any obvious effort, the iceman was loving the conditions.  The overtaking was pretty much all done at the end of the PIT straight into turn one, definitely one for the future should you plan on attending this race.  We were positioned in Grandstand Lagos on the turn 3 hairpin, we could see the climax of the action in turn 1 from our position but we were just out of range to get a full view. 

Of course the rest is history, Hamilton managed to work his tryes and get back through the field and take a Historic 92 Grand Prix win.  Our guests enjoyed a tail-gate party after the race whilst we let some traffic die-down and we were home within the hour.   Back for a quick sundowner before the rain everyone was praying for during the race finally arrived.

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Portugal paved the way for showing how as COVID-secure large event could be facilitated. We'll likely end up with a few races in this format in the early stages of the 2021 season but circuits should be ready having learned from this years experience.  Fans will be back in force next year, it might be a bit different but the passion for racing remains as strong as ever!  

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