iWitness in Monte Carlo: Thursday

Posted on Friday 22 May 2009 and tagged with iwitness, monaco.

Thursday night in Monaco is party night. As has been the case for the last few years, AT&T Williams had a team party aboard the ‘Stad Amsterdam’ clipper. There was much bonhomie, but what was that thin, purple tie, Nico? “I gave it to him,” said his girlfriend Vivian. “I bought it in New York; I think you’ll find it’s very fashionable.” Our thoughts precisely.

AT&T Williams’ PR guru Silvia Hoffer had a conundrum prior to the team party: what shoes to wear? She has brought seven pairs of deck shoes to Monaco (down from 12 last year) and needed to find a pair that went with her elegant purple dress. Choice for a lady can sometimes be a bad thing…

Some good news for Silvia: the shoe chaos of last year aboard Vijay Mallya’s Indian Empress mega-yacht is a thing of the past. Everyone’s shoes and flip-flops got mixed up on the shoe-free boat in ’08, but there is a proper numbering system in ‘09. Hurrah!

Monaco is a great place to celebrate your birthday, so it’s unsurprising that BMW are using the Principality to celebrate Mini’s 50th birthday. Robert Kubica’s F1.09 carried the message “Happy Birthday Mini” in both of today’s practice sessions; it was a pity that he ended the second session in a cloud of smoke.