"Starry, starry night", sang Don Maclean in the song Vincent. He clearly wasn't standing next to the F1 circuit in Singapore when he came up with these lyrics as he would have been able to see bugger all of the night sky with all the extra lighting put in place to illuminate the race track.
Mr Google tells me there at 1,600 custom made lights around the circuit "specially designed to minimise glare and surface reflection". Now I'm not a lighting technician but in all the years I've been driving I will admit that reflection off of tarmac has never been a major concern to me. But what do I know? I suppose if it rains there could be a problem, but then if it rains the field follow the safety car round until Max Verstappen is declared the winner and then they all go home.
Apparently the lighting level is four times that of a football stadium and 100 times that of the street lights the rest of us mugs have to put up with when driving our cars on the road. All these lights are powered by 24 500kVA generators, which builds in multiple levels of redundancy, and there are a further 12 50kVA generators to supply power to all the track side services the teams need. Good old diesel generators! Don't worry, they planted a tree to offset the CO2 emissions. Yes, just the one.
Here's an interesting fact, when the FIA were running tests on the lighting they were helped by the Renault F1 team and their then test driver Nelson Piquet jnr. Perhaps this was what gave him the confidence to hit the wall at high speed in 2009 and know the marshals etc. would be able to get him out safely. Let's not go there shall we?
In defence of the gimmicky nature of the event it does often throw up quite a good race. And being at night you can't see that the surroundings look like Goole docks on a bad day. One of the measures Bernie used to use when choosing new venues for F1 races was whether the super rich wives of his super rich mates would want to go to a GP so that they could go shopping. Singapore certainly fulfills this need, and apparently the Nisa store in Silverstone village does a stonking trade in foie gras and Bollinger during the race weekend in the UK.
One other thing, the Russian GP was supposed to take place between Italy and Singapore. I suspect Bernie is still seething that his mate Vlad has had his moment in the global sports spotlight take away from him. Don't worry Bernie, F1 is still in bed with many other dictators and despots, just look at where the season ends.
Here's the timings for the Sky coverage
Enjoy!
Mr Google tells me there at 1,600 custom made lights around the circuit "specially designed to minimise glare and surface reflection". Now I'm not a lighting technician but in all the years I've been driving I will admit that reflection off of tarmac has never been a major concern to me. But what do I know? I suppose if it rains there could be a problem, but then if it rains the field follow the safety car round until Max Verstappen is declared the winner and then they all go home.
Apparently the lighting level is four times that of a football stadium and 100 times that of the street lights the rest of us mugs have to put up with when driving our cars on the road. All these lights are powered by 24 500kVA generators, which builds in multiple levels of redundancy, and there are a further 12 50kVA generators to supply power to all the track side services the teams need. Good old diesel generators! Don't worry, they planted a tree to offset the CO2 emissions. Yes, just the one.
Here's an interesting fact, when the FIA were running tests on the lighting they were helped by the Renault F1 team and their then test driver Nelson Piquet jnr. Perhaps this was what gave him the confidence to hit the wall at high speed in 2009 and know the marshals etc. would be able to get him out safely. Let's not go there shall we?
In defence of the gimmicky nature of the event it does often throw up quite a good race. And being at night you can't see that the surroundings look like Goole docks on a bad day. One of the measures Bernie used to use when choosing new venues for F1 races was whether the super rich wives of his super rich mates would want to go to a GP so that they could go shopping. Singapore certainly fulfills this need, and apparently the Nisa store in Silverstone village does a stonking trade in foie gras and Bollinger during the race weekend in the UK.
One other thing, the Russian GP was supposed to take place between Italy and Singapore. I suspect Bernie is still seething that his mate Vlad has had his moment in the global sports spotlight take away from him. Don't worry Bernie, F1 is still in bed with many other dictators and despots, just look at where the season ends.
Here's the timings for the Sky coverage
Enjoy!
