Last Friday I popped over to Silverstone for the final day of the three day Formula One “Young Driver Test”.
On the way over to the paddock there was an imposing array of Ferrari tractor units.
Even though paddock access was restricted there were a few fans hoping to catch a glimpse of Sebastian Vettel on his way from the Red Bull hospitality suite to the pits.
The on track action started at 9 am sharp most of the cars were running with an array of extra airspeed sensors, such as that seen on Felipe Massa’s Ferrari F138, not usually seen on the race cars.
McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen and Torro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo set the pace on day one and day two respectively, on Friday Gary Parffet and Jean Eric Vergne took over the respective cars seen at Becketts above.
Making her second appearance in testing for the Williams team was Susie Wolff who recorded 89 laps, nearly two Grand Prix distances recording ninth best time of the day, just under a second slower than Williams team leader Pastor Maldonado recorded the day before.
Nicolas Prost, son of four time World Champion Alain, driving the Lotus E21 set third fastest time on Friday.
Second best time of the day was recorded by Force India regular Adrian Sutil trying out the new tyres that will be used at the Hungarian Grand Prix next week.
Fastest time of all three days was recorded by Sebastian Vettel, who like Sutil was testing the Hungarian Spec Pirelli’s.
After the test there was a ‘sold out’ pit lane walk about during which most of the teams put a car out for display. The well worn wheel nut above is seen on the McLaren.
Caterham put on a demonstration of pit stop drill, blink and you’ll miss it at this close range.
My thanks to Tony “Giraffe” Gallagher for additional track access.
Thanks for joining me on this “Young Driver Test” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !