Those painful F1 testing days of February
Published on 1st March 2010 00:16
Between the trauma of being restricted to a couple of hours of internet access a day over the last month or so; combined with the need to fill my GP head with background statistics to shape my F1 viewing for the interminable nine months of the 2010 season; I have had to restrict my normal compulsive viewing of the Jerez, Valencia and Barcelona tests in February.
It might be just as well as it turned out, as it turned out to be a wreck of pre-season testing, with rain of biblical proportions and two of the teams being no-shows at the preparations.
The McLaren’s of Hamilton and Button look to be in good shape and the Ferrari’s are apparently purring, along with their team manager as Alonso and Massa are getting along quite nicely at the moment. The Mercedes team may need a couple of races to get up to speed.
Williams are raising expectations with a couple of very quick sessions and the two newbie’s that are definitely making it to the grid have performed adequately despite the obvious reliability issues that are bound to dog new teams. Lotus and Virgin have both done around 500, compared to the big boys, 3,550 laps.
The main horror-shows have been the failure of USF1 – maybe terminal – despite all the positive noises that were coming out of the Carolina works last year and the Campos Mega headache that may cause them to turn up late to the events with untried machines. This has been rarely a good recipe for a successful season.
Which raises the obvious question, who vetted the teams that were allowed to enter the F1 championship? Who administered the “fit and proper person’s” test? Max? Bernie? No Idea, I do remember, back in the days of advertising gold that were the 80’s and 90’s when the incoming investors were passed off to other teams that needed the money. Glory days indeed.
It's 1500 miles to Bahrain, I’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and I’m wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
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