• Keith Sutton's Life Through a Lens

Stars in Singapore

September 25, 2013

F1 photographer Keith Sutton picks his six favourite shots from the Singapore Grand Prix

I got the tip off just a few hours before the start of the race that Beckham was coming so I managed to get him in the pit lane first and being interviewed later. I heard he was coming on to the grid and watched out for Bernie; always watch out for Bernie Ecclestone as he usually gives the big hitters a tour! He was a guest of Lewis' because of his XIX management company and it was a massive scrum. Beckham's only been to one race before - at Silverstone in 2007 with Victoria - so this was his second grand prix and I knew it would be madness. We had photos of him with Brawn and with Bernie but it was nice to get one of him with a car too.

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The nice thing about this picture is that it's shot through the glass in the media centre. This was the first pit stop, and I shot the start of the race from opposite the pits on top of the hospitality units. I did about five or six laps up there and then rushed back because we try to get some pictures back early. Then I dashed down in to the media centre and timed the pit stops nicely to get the two Ferraris and the two Red Bulls.

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This just sums up Singapore. What you can do here is use these really slow shutter speeds and pan with it to elongate the lights behind - this one is shot at 1/10 of a second. It's great to get those nice, blurry action shots, and the trick here is to get the car sharp as well. It just emphasises the speed with the lights and everything in the background. The emphasis was very much on Kimi this weekend with the interest in him going back to Ferrari and then having his bad back throughout.

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This was shot on Saturday when Sebastian went on to take pole position, and I've seen him do something like this before. I believe it's dry ice that he's got around him and it's releasing out of the cockpit. He's looking so focused as he's staring in to the distance and it just shows what kind of heat the drivers have to deal with as he's not willing to have his helmet on at this stage as he tries to keep cool.

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This shot on Friday was still daylight and just about to turn to dusk. It's nice because you've got the one tree right there in between the flyover and the huge modern hotels; it just shows what is the other side of the walls that the drivers are racing between. I went out to Singapore before it hosted its first race and the amount of trees that they had to cut down for the pit and paddock complex was unbelievable, so it's good to see a few survivors in the city!

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We were doing a shoot with Ron Walker, Daniel Ricciardo, Mark Webber and Bernie, and with Ferrari being the next garage Stefano Domenicali came over to say hello to Ron and Bernie. Then as he was leaving Domenicali saw Mark was back in the Red Bull garage and went to say hello to him; obviously they had talks last year about a potential move. As he was leaving he saw me taking some shots and he's smiling and looking right at me as he quickly leaves the garage. It looks like he's sneaking out.

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