Today saw two practice sessions of 90 minutes with scattered cloud resulting in varying light conditions.
For the morning session I took up a position in the stand on the left hand side of this pic of the hairpin. It’s an impressive section of track and it was nice to see a good smattering of people filling the seats. 
I was told that many of the drivers will wave to the crowd in that left hand stand on there “outlap” so I shot tight with a 500mm lens and snapped a number of them doing just that. 
While Sergio Perez (below) didn’t wave, this side on shot shows the savage looking apparatus on the side of his car which features a whole host of sensors that sensor things not important to you or me, but of vital importance to those running the show at Force India.
I ended up shooting from 3 of the four stands which resulted in a variety of shots. I am mindful of including the surrounds and crowd in my images to show that it’s Montreal. Focusing tightly on cars results in pics that could have been taken anywhere.
A handful of cars were locking up as they headed into the hairpin which produces a puff of smoke, the Williams were multiple offenders. 
Poor Carlos Sainz didn’t even get a lap out of his car. With smoke visible, he pulled over on the grass at the hairpin and called it a morning. 
Oh, and see the marshals at the top left of this shot, I shot from there with the cars coming straight at me. It was a top spot with nothing in my way although much trust is placed in the drivers turning left and not ploughing into the waist high wall in front of me. 
Oh, and Carlos’s car was given a lift back to the garage after the morning session finished.
Fernando Alonso also called it a morning at the hairpin after his car developed engine problems again. He was happy, however, to accept the crowd’s adulation and gave them a round of applause for supporting him. 
After a quick lunch at the media lounge it was back to the laptop to edit and upload pics in the media centre. 
The afternoon session started at 2pm so half an hour prior, I set off through the wilderness to find a spot where I was told it was possible to shoot through the trees. There are no spectactors along most of the back side of the track, not surprising given how hard it is to get through the bush.
Seasoned pros, Steven Tee and Mark Thompson were my guides and once we located the spot, some pruning was required in order to yield a gap to shoot through.
Shooting towards the oncoming cars produced a range of good pics. 
As did shooting them going away from me. 
I then walked back to the start, stopping at various shooting holes on the way. Some of these were only made just prior to the session by a track worker taking to the metal fence with some bolt cutters. This spot below allowed me to get within 2 metres of the cars as they exited the 2nd corner. 
Here I shoot head on with the stand at turn 2 in the background.
Based at turn two was a good decision as there were a few incidents that livenend up the session with Daniil Kvyatt getting messy,
While Valtteri Bottas had a spin.
There was one very interesting incident that I have no pics of though. Upon arriving back in the media centre there was talk of a photographer positioned in a dangerous position at the exit of turn 2. I remember seeing a photographer in that area. He was crouched low with his lens and body sticking out from behind a concrete barrier. I thought that was a pretty good spot for shooting although it looked like the drivers could see him exposed and if they can see him, they could hit him.
It turned out I was right as Kimi Raikonnen actually made mention of it on the radio saying a photographer was visible at turn 2, the TV broadcast also highlighted it, so that is something that no doubt the FIA will be looking into.
That was my day at the Canadian Grand Prix and I have two more days of it to come over the weekend. Thanks for reading and please share this with your friends.
