FROM THE ARCHIVES: AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX DEPARTURES
Digging out some of our favourite race transporter footage from the 2019 Australian Grand Prix
A Melbourne Performance Centre’s B-Double transporter departing Albert Park
Sometimes, fortune just falls in your favour. And that’s exactly what happened as the sun set on the 2019 Rolex Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.
It was a glorious Sunday in Melbourne, and Valtteri Bottas had just crossed the line to clinch the season-opener for the Mercedes F1 Team. Tens of thousands of spectators poured out of the gates, but cameras in hand, we hung around the support category paddock and asked a couple of the race team members what time the trucks would be leaving.
“We haven’t been told yet. It could be well after 7pm.”
Then came the ‘do we, or don’t we?’ moment. We started to be ushered out of the circuit by the officials, keen to clear the venue so work could begin on dismantling the circuit for local traffic in the following days.
As the sun set and the temperature dropped, we made our way toward the Fitzroy Street and Lakeside Drive intersection, and decided to wait another half hour for the transporters to depart. If there wasn’t any movement by then, we’d head for home and get some sleep for the coming work week.
After around 25 minutes, the Eggleston Motorsport transporter rumbled south along Lakeside Drive. For the next half hour, transporter after transporter left the Grand Prix venue with a beautiful sunset behind them.
A very late night followed, with hours of editing to upload a video the following day. And when we published it on Facebook the next evening, the video took off almost immediately. It ended up garnering over 250,000 views and attracting around 4,000 new page likes. It was confirmation that we were onto something.
Almost two years later, we’ve trawled back through the footage and whittled it down to 7 minutes of highlights for our YouTube channel. Enjoy it below, and make sure you subscribe to be notified when we’ve been transporter spotting.
That Sunday night in March 2019 was special, and while the 2020 Australian Grand Prix was cancelled, and 2021 delayed, you can be sure we’ll be back transporter spotting at Albert Park in November.