Day 06 – Vic to Circuit and back…
The morning began at 6am when the alarm went off – our intention being to be out of the Hotel by 7am. (yeah right!). Actually, we didn’t do too badly in the end – 7.15am and we were rolling down the road, having once again admired the view out of the bedroom window…
45 minutes later, after a little help from the GPS and of course from local signage (i.e. we followed signposts!!...)
…we arrived at our day’s destination…
…and went in search of coffee and breakfast. (by the way, if anyone tells you the British Grand Prix is expensive, they’re either lying, or have never been to the Spanish one!!! The coffee cups were small… but to make matters worse, they were only half filled! And over 2 euros a pop! And as for the hamburgers… don’t ask!
Anyway, we wondered around the track and placed an order for next years car…
…and then found ourselves some seats for the day in one of the many grandstands…
For some of today we sat opposite the pit lane, as this afforded us a good view of the start/finish straight, and also the pit lane itself, where we saw an old friend…
…and gave him some advice on his driving techniques…
Unfortunately, we also got to watch Kimi breakdown on the circuit, so his luck hasn’t improved since the last race, poor fella!
Two hours of F1 Test session (8.30am – 10.30am) saw no movement on the track (probably just as well as people seemed to be stood on it), with the exception of the safety cars, however the morning practice at 11am-12am, and the afternoon practice at 2pm-3pm saw plenty of action, and gave us a few more pics of cars (you’re going to be SO bored of pictures of F1 cars by Sunday night!!)
We spent the final hour or so with Brian and Spence (aka number 2 finishers on the Tour de Liberation 2004) and then once the afternoon F1 Practice was over, we made a move back to the car (still there as well – bonus or WHAT!!), and were relieved to say that despite what Bernie Ecclestone may tell us about how bad the traffic access to and from the Silverstone race circuit is, its nothing on the Spanish one!!
After our extremely tiring day (no no.. really, it was – early start, small coffee’s, walked all around the circuit at least once, sat and watched cars for hours…none of this is easy OR pleasurable… don’t you forget that now…) we came back to our Parador* and fell asleep for the next 3 hours!!
We went down to the restaurant and had another fantastic meal, and have now retired to our room and managed to get an outside line on the phone here (woohoo… 19.2k/s…hmmmmm).
*Paradors: In 1928, at the initiative of the Marquee Vega Inclan, the first Parador was opened. The concept behind them is to provide hotels in unique buildings such as old or converted Medieval Castles, Fortresses, Convents and Monasteries, (there’s something for everyone there…!), old Palaces, and Ancestral (as opposed to Incestral?) homes. Each Parador also specialized in the cuisine of the region in which they are based. (evidently, Anchovies are very popular in the Catalunya region!!). There are somewhere in the region of 90 Paradors in Spain.
Your history lesson is over once again; we’re not charging for this extra info, so stop your whinging!!
Seeing as its now heading towards half past the hour of eleven, its time to see if we can get another line to the uk (who knows, perhaps it will even be faster this time*) and post this update, then heads down in anticipation for another early morning. It was busy enough at the circuit today, and its not even race day yet!
Until the next one, night night!
Garry and Mike
* great, 14.4k/s…hey ho..!