Fiestas and Football

The F1 paddock woke last Thursday morning with a fairly collective hangover. Everyone from catering staff to press officers to mechanics and fans had stumbled across one of Spain`s biggest parties, and my word do the Spanish know how to party!

In my experience impromptu parties are always the best. No amount of party planning has ever rivalled a random party that you just stumble across, and so was the case last Wednesday evening.

Earlier in the day we had met a Venezuelan guy in a bar, who was in Valencia for the San Juan festival and the fact that F1 was in town seemed to have been secondary in his mind when he travelled halfway around the world for one night of partying. He was shocked to find out that we knew nothing about the evenings impending party and very kindly suggested that we should join him, his friends and family.

Let me explain; `San Juan` is a Spanish festival to celebrate the summer solstice. The traditional festival has stretched along the coast from its conception in Alicante and is now Valencia`s biggest fiesta. The general idea is to sit on the rather impressive city centre beach, light a campfire, drink (lots), eat and then at midnight write a wish on a piece of paper, throw it in the fire, then run in the sea and jump over 12 waves. This in theory will make all your wishes come true.

It didn`t work, But was a nice idea.

Oh and I also failed to mention that while you re doing all these pagan rituals 1million other people are on the same beach as you, getting drunk, playing with fire and generally letting their hair down in true Spanish style.

These are some of the advantages to having a street race such as Valencia. Some of the more traditional circuits, whilst providing great racing and a genuine atmosphere, lack that certain something that comes from being based in the centre of a big city. Valencia has never produced a stunning race and may not do in the future, but for evening entertainment it ranks as highly as Melbourne, Montreal or Monaco.

I would love to say that not all of the weekend was based around alcohol consumption and partying, but I would be lying. There was of course the World Cup to watch.

Now being English, I will not dwell on this for too long, other than to say it was nice to see Vijay Mallya sitting in the same bar as us watching the Spain v Chile match.

Vijay, whose multimillion pound yacht was moored just a few hundred metres away in the circuit harbour, had obviously decided that he wanted to slum it for the evening and left the luxury of his boat to sit with the true Spanish fans and watch some football.
Quite how he ever has time to run his many businesses I have no idea? He seems to be constantly flying around the world to watch football, cricket and F1.

Talking of flying, I bet the Red Bull advertising gurus were rubbing their hands with glee as they watched Mark Webber spice up a fairly dull European GP with the first real sign that Red Bull really does give you wings!