Ok, now where the h*ll is the F1 track?

It's 12:00 noon. There’s a flurry of phone calls and raised voices up front. The other bus in our contingent has broken down and a few passengers from there have to be transferred on to our bus. These people had signed up for tickets for the 1st qualifying session (1:00 pm on the Saturday), so our bus would now take a ‘short’ detour, stop by the F1 track, drop them off, and resume the journey to our hotel at Subang. The new passengers clamber onto the bus, and we chug along.

Our bus driver loses his way at the entrance to the track. Yes, the combined navigational might of an experienced driver and a guide are overcome by the confusing layout and lack of signs at Sepang. The result is a series of U-turns and much confusion. Not to mention a profusion of views of the large mosque from a variety of angles. The mosque, by the way, is the landmark for the area. Finally a bunch of us in the back of the bus pull out our maps and shout a chorus of instructions to the stressed out driver – “Left here! Straight! Right there!”, and we finally pull up at parking lot PA3 at 2:00 pm, right after the qualifying session has ended. The driver’s confusion has cost us 45 minutes, and this entire detour will cost us 3 hours. My sympathies to the folks who had paid for the qualifying tickets - I hope they got some money back.



After much more driving, and much more confusion again at Subang, and a bunch of instructions from the back of the bus, we finally alight at Holiday Villa Subang. Very hungry, tired, and in my case sleep deprived.