The cars on the track go round and round ...

The Ferrari Store on Madang Lu is rarely crowded. In fact, it is usually empty, save for its red-uniformed staff. And this makes sense to Shanghaiist -- why would anyone pay $30 for a baby bib? But yesterday was a different story. There were cars on the patio, and a couple hundred people crowding around them. This can mean one of two things: either a taxi hit another bicyclist ... or there's an F1 race on this weekend. While we're fairly certain a taxi hit a bicyclist somewhere in Shanghai yesterday (likely several places) there is not a website to confirm it, and there are several websites about the 2005 China Grand Prix.

According to this really involved event timetable, you can see that the race's first practice session started about an hour ago out at the Shanghai Circuit. And while this story from a few days ago suggests that tickets sales were slow, sites like these suggest the race is pretty much sold out. Tickets for Saturday and Sunday ranged in price from RMB 160 to RMB 3980, by the way. Another number worth noting: 162 million people throughout the world are expected to watch the China Grand Prix.

Since the Shanghai track is about an hour out of Shanghai, the 10,000 private cars that have parking permits for the event will not have to pay tolls en route to the race. The Shanghai Daily, also tells us that four bus lines will provide free shuttle services to the track during the three-day event. The buses will depart from Shanghai Stadium, Shanghai International Gymnastic Center, Shanghai Hongkou Football Stadium and Shanghai Yuanshen Sports Center.

Meanwhile, Shanghaiist -- who enjoys those wacky American sports -- wonders if anyone wants to get together to watch the baseball playoffs.

Related:
2005 season the end of an era for F1 (Reuters)

Photo of the Ferrari Store on Thursday from Shanghai Diaries via Flickr.