The press conference and official unveiling of the new paddocks took place today as scheduled. Though it's obvious that there is still some work to do before the teams, media and VIP fans move in to the new facilities in 3 weeks, it looks like it will be a great new complex.
Video report (mostly in French)
Officials insist Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's new paddocks will be ready for F1 race
'I want to reassure everyone: The paddocks will be ready for the Grand Prix,' Renaud Coulombe, head of Société du Parc Jean Drapeau, told attendees.
FRÉDÉRIC TOMESCO Updated: May 15, 2019
Montreal Gazette
May 15
Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve’s $60-million facelift is inching toward the finish line.
Mayor Valérie Plante was among the dignitaries who joined hundreds of sponsors and guests on Wednesday morning to inaugurate the new state-of-the-art paddocks at Île-Notre-Dame. Work on the structure is more than 95 per cent done, which ensures the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada will proceed without a hitch from June 7-9, race chief executive François Dumontier told reporters.
Even as officials spoke, construction crews were busy laying asphalt on pit row and operating machinery amid a din worthy of a large construction site...
... “This is an absolutely spectacular facility,” Chase Carey, CEO of F1 owner Liberty Media, said Wednesday at the event. “It’s rare that expectations are exceeded, but this facility does that. We can’t wait to be back here in a little over three weeks.”
Montreal committed to modernizing and expanding the garages at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve as a condition for a 14-year extension of the agreement to stage the Grand Prix. As things stand, Montreal will host the race until at least 2029.
