Kit appears to be a little more settled today – what a difference 24 hours makes. She is still incredibly placid and timid, but is beginning to show her true colours especially when playing with a catnip laced monkey that we bought for her today!
The smaller photo was just something I had to do.
In other, cat free news, on Tuesday the Williams FW35 was launched – the last of the 2013 cars to be revealed. Quite why they skipped the first test (they ran a modified 2012 car at Jerez) I will never know, especially with testing being so limited in Formula One nowadays. But here it is (better late than never, things got in the way):
The driver line up for the year is now almost finalised too and looks like this:
- Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault)
- Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault)
- Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
- Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
- Jenson Button (McLaren-Mercedes)
- Sergio Perez (McLaren-Mercedes)
- Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus-Renault)
- Romain Grosjean (Lotus-Renault)
- Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
- Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
- Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber-Ferrari)
- Estenban Gutierrez (Sauber-Ferrari)
- 13 is not used on Formula 1 cars
- Paul di Resta (Force India-Mercedes)
- TBC (Force India-Mercedes)
- Pastor Maldonado (Williams-Renault)
- Valtteri Bottas (Williams-Renault)
- Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso-Ferrari)
- Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso-Ferrari)
- Charles Pic (Caterham-Renault)
- Giedo van der Garde (Caterham-Renault)
- Luiz Razia (Marussia-Cosworth)
- Max Chilton (Marussia-Cosworth)
A car numbered 13 has only appeared once in a Grand Prix. Moises Solana qualified 11th for his first race in 1963 in a BRM numbered 13. He was a classified finisher in 11th despite his engine having failed eight laps short of the chequered flag. Solana went on to compete in another seven Grand Prix but never with the number 13 again.
The only other occasion a car numbered 13 appeared in an F1 race weekend was in 1976 when Divina Galica attempted to qualify for her first Grand Prix (also her home race, at Brands Hatch) in Surtees-Ford number 13. She failed to make the race, as she did on her other two attempts to enter races in 1978.
Today marks the end of the most recent four day test at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
- The first day saw Nico Rosberg (1m22.616s) narrowly beat Kimi Raikkonen (1m22.672) to put Mercedes on top. Both men found improvements after bolting on Pirelli’s medium-compound rubber in the final 20 minutes of the day.
- Sergio Perez put McLaren on top on day two. The Wednesday afternoon session featured Perez’s lap of 1m21.848s, which was achieved on a one-lap sprint on soft tyres, and deposed the previous pacesetter Sebastian Vettel by 0.349 seconds.
- Fernando Alonso went fastest (1m21.875s) on the penultimate day when the majority of teams dedicated the afternoon to full-race simulations. His time is almost half a second quicker than the corresponding soft-compound best of 2012 winter testing at the track.
- Finally, Lewis Hamilton went fastest for Mercedes on the rain-hit final day. His best time of 1m23.282s was set on a break between showers in the morning session.
The differing conditions, low fuel, new tyres and changes between the days continue to make testing difficult to read anything from. For so many teams to have set the best times of the day is encouraging for a mixed up season once more though – and that can only lead to decent racing yet again!
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