iWitness in Brazil: Saturday

Posted on Sunday 18 Oct 2009 and tagged with iwitness, sao-paulo, brazil.

Today’s torrential rain at Interlagos was met with frustration by the drivers, but not everyone at AT&T Williams was disappointed to see the rivers flowing down the racetrack. “Where I come from in Botswana,” says Damien Scott, a member of our acquisitions department, “rain is very special. People do dances to celebrate the arrival of the rains in September.” What chance a quick twirl, eh Damien?

Silvia Hoffer isn’t taking any security risks this weekend. Our PR guru has taken to wearing civvies into and out of the racetrack and she even covers up the car pass on the marketing mini bus. “When we pull up at traffic lights, the car pass makes it obvious that we work in F1,” says the Hoff. “You hear too many stories of hold-ups at traffic lights in this city.”

John Sertori, the AT&T Williams Paddock Club race commentator, had a close shave this morning, but there were no thieves involved. While shaving his head (John’s a tough-looking Aussie), the batteries in his hair clippers ran out and he was left looking for a hat/bandana/scarf to cover up the botched job. “Until I remembered that my Philips shaver has a hair trimmer on it,” he says. “That saved the day.” Yet another reason to love Philips…

To end today’s ‘close shaves’ theme, we spoke to Jo Turley, one of the AT&T Williams catering girls. She flew to the Brazilian Grand Prix via Hawaii, where she swam with sharks for the first time. “I loved it,” she says. “It was amazing to see these sharks, some of which were 10 feet long. However, my view was ruined at one point when one of the other divers in our cage vomited…” Nice.