Living in the twilight zone

The Singapore Grand Prix is a great event. No question about that. But it is downright weird. The Formula 1 circus has come to town and the majority of those involved are living on European time. To put that into some perspective, it means that it is six in the morning here and I should now be going to bed. I should be sleeping until about one in the afternoon and then going to the circuit where I will be greeted with lots of people saying “Good morning” and sitting down to eat eggs and bacon in the team hospitality areas.

When it gets dark at about 8pm one should be lunching and then after practice is done and the relevant briefings and such things are done it will be two or three in the morning and then one should be thinking about dinner. This is all very well if you have a team of caterers working specifically to fulfil your topsy-turvy needs, but the rest of the world (oddly enough) goes on as normal.

Someone asked me yesterday about Singapore last year and when I thought about how we all coped I realised that I could not remember having eaten a single proper meal between Thursday evening and Monday lunchtime. We lived, as I recall, on sandwiches that were available in the Media Centre. One could go home at three or four in the morning and find places to eat (Singapore is filled with traders after all) but my metabolism has been trained over the years to adapt quickly to change and so my body was always telling me that I should be going to sleep and I had real trouble trying to make it believe that it was a good moment to have a Thai red curry or some nasi goreng.

Singapore is a great melting pot of cultures and there is fantastic choice here – but that will have to wait until next week.

Last year I also made the mistake of going to the paddock in the mid-morning. It was utterly deserted. Things were not even open.

I might as well have been there at night.