Grand Prix Weekend on Crescent

The place to be during F1 Weekend

Even though the summer solstice is just over 2 weeks away, summertime officially kicks off in Montreal this weekend with the Formula 1 Grand Prix. And as always, pacing the weekend is the LG Crescent Street Grand Prix Festival.

Crescent Street has always been one of the most active summertime streets in Montreal, but it gets kicked up a notch during Grand Prix weekend. It’ll be crowded, festooned with beautiful people from all over the world, spilling from every terrase outside of every bar, eating, drinking, perhaps even smoking the Cuban cigars that they can’t get at home. There will be scantily clad women. And it’ll be loud.

Along the road you’ll find several booths and features, including the LG Speed Zone, where you can play the newest Need For Speed game, or the Pirelli display where you can slide into a race simulator. You can test your mettle in a pit crew challenge. And, of course, as always you can grab a big bottle of Mumm Champaign and pose for pictures with the LG pit girls.

P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens will be around, as will Olympic skier Alexandre Bilodeau and Olympic diver Alexandre Despatie.

But of course it’s a racing event, so of course a couple of drivers will be on hand, including Vitaly Petrov. The Lotus Renault GP driver was involved in a crash in Monaco a couple of weeks ago, but he says he’s in good form, and looking forward to the race. Indy, F1, and CART veteran Emerson Fittipaldi will also me there, so keep a sharp eye out.

Up at the top of Crescent, corner De Maisonneuve (right outside Restaurant Newtown, formerly owned by driver Jacques Villeneuve) is the Virgin Mobile Stage, where MuchMusic Video Award-winner Fefe Dobson will play Thursday night. Friday night Sloan, who have just released their 10th album, The Double Cross, takes the stage. And on Saturday, it’s Juno Award-winning rap-rockers Down With Webster.

If you look around carefully, somewhere on the outskirts of Crescent, you just mind find some more scantily clad women. But these ones, dressed in either skin-tight, black pit-crew suits, or, if it’s too hot, bikinis, will be giving out free food. They’re not officially part of Grand Prix Weekend, but they’re with Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Whether it’s an anti-fur campaign, or protests against the seal hunt, Peta is known for sending young women dressed in very little. This time, in keeping with the Grand Prix theme, they want you to “make sure that your own engine is running on high octane” by eating vegan, and they’ll try to entice you to become a vegetarian with free samples of vegetarian kielbasa. Yumm. Just look for the signs that say “Rev Your Engine—Go Vegan.”