I left the UK at 6:30 this morning (Sunday) and arrived just before 10am. I did a little research on the times for the BMW Sauber and Renault launches and thought I could get there with plenty of time to spare. Sure enough a 2hr drive along the Costa Brava and I arrive at the Valencia Circuit with plenty of time to spare before the first launch.

BMW Sauber were the first team to launch their car at 14:30hrs today. The car was covered up and wheeled down the start/finish straight and then unveiled on time by Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi. Pedro has always been shy of the cameras during my years of F1 testing. Keeps his visor down alot and doesn’t really warm to photographers calls. Unlike other launches once the drivers had done there bit the car was left out and photographers swarmed around it taking photos of all angles. Its not my cup of tea so I stayed away and went to the press conference with Willy Rampf and Peter Sauber. Very interesting listening to some very intelligent people. Certainly they were quite forward with alot of questions but very careful with other things. Budget I think is a major factor and they did not want to say where they cut staff, how much budget they have. With lack of sponsors and Peter Sauber stating that they did not have a major backer then you wonder where they are going to be this year.

16:30hrs and waiting around for the launch of Renault. It was a big mess up as we all get in place ready for the garage door to open but for some unknown reason the car can only get pushed out at one angle only. It is unable to turn its wheels. So moved again but I really did not get a good spot at all. The sun was not helping and to be honest it was a total mess up on my part.
The drivers moved up to the press conference where they get split into different sections for different languages. Robert Kubica obviously getting most of the attention and I did not really listen to what he had to say. Vitaly Petrov who is not very well known to your average F1 fan however has been very successful in GP2. During his interview today he said he really knew nothing about F1 and always wanted to do rallying. Quite a refreshing change I feel from the usual “It has always been my goal to be in F1 and be champion”.

A fairly early finish to the day. Nothing else really going on elsewhere although the Mercedes GP team have a massive double truck. Who says that money is being cut in testing. Two trucks join as one to create a very large office at the top. Photo to follow.