19th June 2007

Well I've been going to Silverstone testing days since 2004, but this year (2007) was the first time I've actualy been for the whole 3 day..
I also took my good F1 friend Marney with me the three days!
This year a new rule has come in where teams are only allowed to test one car on the track each day. The good news however was this year we actually had a commentator telling us which drivers were there, when and where incidents happened etc.

We arrived at the Carpark at about 9:40am, after having to stop for petrol, we left home at 8:30am -so wasn't that bad with traffic
But when we walked through the tunnel, the red lights were on, meaning an incident had happened, turned out to be a Williams, So we headed to the loos for pitstops, and to apply suncream on myself as it was sunny.. and after my brothers bad sunburn in 2004, I came prepared (even though it was forcast for rain!)

Eventually testing resumed, We started off watching at Luffied terrace, watching Renualt, McLaren, Toyato, BMW and Williams.
We then walked down to the Silverstone stand and sat along the pit stright for ages, where the sun was hot, but we also had the wind coming off the track, we should be careful in these conditions as it can lead to sunburn....
We snapped piccys of Mclaren's car coming back to the pits on the lorry after going off track.
Red Bull also came out as did the Spyker.
We decided to love on further down to Copes corner, where Marney happen to notice Sabastian Vettel stand by the BMW pitwall walking the cars, with his ear defenders, but he went away after Marney's spotting him and us taking a few piccys at him! (he made his race debut in Canada standing in for a recovering Robert Kubica at the bad monaco crash)
Loved seeing Toyato's board sign for Ralf... Ralf In -> (well it cuts to the point don't it!)

The Session stopped for lunch at 1pm, in which we headed back to my car, to eat our sarnie, crisps, Rocky bars and drank plenty of water. We also descovered that Marney was turning into a lobster with very sunburnt arms, so applied loads of lotion, and then 2pm came, and we headed back to the circuit.

We stood at Luffield terrace again, taking loads of pictures, saw Red Bull back on track again, and Torro Rosso was out on track this afternoon (after some flight delays from the US, after the Gp that previous weekend). Then after a while we headed back to the Silverstone stand, It was real to see the pace of the cars, like McLaren, and Ferrari. Thought the Renualt sounded like it have problems when it came out the garage, it was strugging down the pit lane all the time...

We did see lots of red lights appearing thoughout the day as Mark Webber (Red Bull) had michanical problems as did Luca Badoer (Ferrari), Nick Heidfeld (BMW) and Vitantonio Liuzzi (Torro Rosso).
Kazuki Nakajima (Williams) Spun his BMW, and Spyker had a spin, before lunch, which ment they need a new nose cone.... which they forgot to bring with them... and there factory is only across the road, but it took till after luch before the car was back on track.

The best part of my day was Marney's comment of "you never see cars go off int eh gravel around Luffield.... Towards the end Luca Badoer spun the Ferrari in the Gravel, which we got plenty of pictures from!

My camera batterie decided to die like two minutes from the end... so I missed capturing the bloke waving the chequared flag at the start/finish line to tell the Drivers its the end of the days testing. Myself and Marney watched all hte cars go into the pits, saying bye to them them.

We grabbed a cuppa Tea and Coffee each and then it was time to for me to drive us home.

In total I took 385 pictures that day, and recorded 8 videos, no wonder my battery died!
But all I can say is "Bring on day two"!

My (Hannah's) Pictures

More pictures coming soon as my GIMP programe is playing me up big time tonight!

Here are the results of the testing:

Please do not take any of MY pictures without asking me first (e-mail link in bottom frame)