Ils sont arrivés.
They have arrived. The Formula One visitors. Wearing narrow clothes and toting tiny cameras.
Congregating in small numbers at this point, but all over downtown. Smoking. Which draws focus.
They speak French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Russian and baffling digressions from Austin English.
At the Four Seasons Hotel, promoters are setting up for Gold, a series a VIP events in the well-trafficked banquet area. The same group, Formula One VIP Events, is staging Blu at the W Austin.
Outside, a rainbow of Ferraris await. Near the door sulks a sleek black Hennessey Venom GT, which one car lover priced at $1 million.
Inside, we discovered a pop-up lobby store manned by Gareth Wynn all the way from Zimbabwe.
“I’m just waiting for Steven Tyler to walk through,” he says of the famed racer while showing me a $995 Ghurka handbag.
Drivers are staying here and at the W Austin, but of course hotel management won’t confirm. Nor should they.
Hotel spokeswoman Kerri Holden will talk about the specialty cocktails, internationalized menu and high-end wines. The liquid refreshments are stocked by sommelier Mark Sayre, who is selling pricey Krug champagne by the glass instead of just the bottle.
Back outside, we ran into Dede Rogers, president of the Porsche Club of the Carrera Region.
“The other members drove their Porsches from El Paso,” she says. “I flew because I’m a lazy (expletive).”
It would be fun to hang out with Rogers in a bar, but I declined. It was just after noon.
Only a few workers hung around the Austin Convention Center where, for the next three days, a ticketed Circuit of the Americas party will commence.
Over in the Warehouse District, the Fan Fest rises on closed streets and parking lots. Looks like a flashier version of the customary Austin street party in the making.
Sports manager Steve Kutner and his son, student Wolfie Kutner, had just arrived from London on their first trip to Austin.
“We go to as many races as we can,” Wolfie says.
“People are saying this circuit is really, really good,” Steve says.
Drew McQuade, manager of W Austin, said his hotel is ripe and ready to go. Celebrities, of course, but no names.
“Everyone is a celebrity at the W,” McQuade quips. “Everybody gets inside access.”
Well, yes, but some more than others.
Somebody must own the orange Bugatti ouside, estimated by another car lover to cost $2 million.
Upstairs at the W, musician and promoter Ginger Leigh was selling among the last seats for the Blu nightclub and other Formula One VIP Events parties.
“We selling 80 percent at the VIP level,” Leigh says. “That comes out to about $1,000 a person for seating and bottle service. Everybody is doing it last minute.”
She and business partner Ian Weightman seemed calm and ready to sail.
Weightman, you may remember, is the Formula One super-fan who won the right to produce various social events that link potential Austin fans to Grand Prix regulars.
Otherwise, the streets are pretty quiet. Maybe, like during the London Olympics, locals have been scared away by predictions of catastrophic traffic.
Photos to come