After yesterday’s media day, the on-track action kicked off today (Friday 25th July) at the Hungaroring with first and second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
It also was my 10th day in the F1 paddock. You may think that is a relatively small number, but to me it is a very nice milestone to reach.
Friday kicked off with a 6:00am alarm, although I must have drifted back to sleep as I seemed to wake up 50 minutes later, before leaving to the track.
From the hotel that I am staying at in Budapest, it is only about a 20 minute drive to the circuit, which means I can get a little bit more sleep.
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After arriving in the paddock at around 8:00am, Luke Smith (NBCSN and my boss at Richland F1), Abhishek Takle (Midday and also a contributor to Richland F1) and I headed to Ferrari for breakfast, where we met Leanne Boon from Octane Photographic.
I got a piece up on Daniel Ricciardo’s comments from Thursday about his battle with Fernando Alonso in Germany before first practice started. Conditions were warm and dry, but a nice breeze at the circuit meant it didn’t feel as hot as I had expected.
Mercedes predictably topped the session, with Lewis Hamilton leading Nico Rosberg. It was great to see the cars sliding, the drivers really wrestling the cars and taking to the run-off. This is largely thanks to the green and slippery track, the loss of FRIC and the harder compound tyres.
Kimi Raikkonen was third fastest, ahead of his team-mate Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Max Chilton had a very tough session and managed just five laps after an oil leak issue with his Marussia MR03.
During the session it was officially confirmed that Azerbaijan will join the F1 calendar in 2016, with the European Grand Prix retuning to the schedule on a new street track around Baku.
Between the two practice sessions I also got a piece online on Hamilton rubbishing claims Mercedes are interested in signing Vettel, following comments from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko.
Second practice followed and it was a fairly straight-forward session, with the drivers completing longer runs on the prime tyre before switching to low-fuel option compound runs, and concluding with race set-up work on the soft Pirelli tyre.
Hamilton was fastest once again, from Rosberg and Vettel. Alonso and Kevin Magnussen, who took a trip through the turn six gravel trap, completed the top five in the afternoon session.
During the session my Twitter was going slightly mental thanks to Luke’s decision to share that I don’t like bacon, which sparked quite a reaction. It was quite distracting when I was trying to concentrate on what was going on during FP2.
There are never usually very many press sessions for online or print media on the Friday, so I only managed to get quotes from the two Lotus drivers. Pastor Maldonado had a trouble-free day, while Romain Grosjean suffered a water leak the morning and it re-appeared in the afternoon.
It was then back to the media centre to transcribe, post any other news pieces and post-practice thoughts from the drivers and then head back to the hotel to do yet more work and grab something to eat.
Tomorrow should be a really interesting day and hopefully we will have an exciting qualifying session, with a mixed up grid for Sunday’s race.
Saturday is usually the busiest day of the weekend thanks to the number of media sessions and having one session in the morning and then qualifying later on.
It should be a good day and I am very much looking forward to it. Be sure to bookmark Richland F1 if you haven’t already for all the latest news and reports. I will also try my best to post some behind-the-scenes images on my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Friday kicked off with a 6:00am alarm, although I must have drifted back to sleep as I seemed to wake up 50 minutes later, before leaving to the track.
From the hotel that I am staying at in Budapest, it is only about a 20 minute drive to the circuit, which means I can get a little bit more sleep.
After arriving in the paddock at around 8:00am, Luke Smith (NBCSN and my boss at Richland F1), Abhishek Takle (Midday and also a contributor to Richland F1) and I headed to Ferrari for breakfast, where we met Leanne Boon from Octane Photographic.
I got a piece up on Daniel Ricciardo’s comments from Thursday about his battle with Fernando Alonso in Germany before first practice started. Conditions were warm and dry, but a nice breeze at the circuit meant it didn’t feel as hot as I had expected.
Mercedes predictably topped the session, with Lewis Hamilton leading Nico Rosberg. It was great to see the cars sliding, the drivers really wrestling the cars and taking to the run-off. This is largely thanks to the green and slippery track, the loss of FRIC and the harder compound tyres.
Kimi Raikkonen was third fastest, ahead of his team-mate Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Max Chilton had a very tough session and managed just five laps after an oil leak issue with his Marussia MR03.
During the session it was officially confirmed that Azerbaijan will join the F1 calendar in 2016, with the European Grand Prix retuning to the schedule on a new street track around Baku.
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| © Octane Photographic |
Between the two practice sessions I also got a piece online on Hamilton rubbishing claims Mercedes are interested in signing Vettel, following comments from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko.
Second practice followed and it was a fairly straight-forward session, with the drivers completing longer runs on the prime tyre before switching to low-fuel option compound runs, and concluding with race set-up work on the soft Pirelli tyre.
Hamilton was fastest once again, from Rosberg and Vettel. Alonso and Kevin Magnussen, who took a trip through the turn six gravel trap, completed the top five in the afternoon session.
During the session my Twitter was going slightly mental thanks to Luke’s decision to share that I don’t like bacon, which sparked quite a reaction. It was quite distracting when I was trying to concentrate on what was going on during FP2.
There are never usually very many press sessions for online or print media on the Friday, so I only managed to get quotes from the two Lotus drivers. Pastor Maldonado had a trouble-free day, while Romain Grosjean suffered a water leak the morning and it re-appeared in the afternoon.
It was then back to the media centre to transcribe, post any other news pieces and post-practice thoughts from the drivers and then head back to the hotel to do yet more work and grab something to eat.
Tomorrow should be a really interesting day and hopefully we will have an exciting qualifying session, with a mixed up grid for Sunday’s race.
Saturday is usually the busiest day of the weekend thanks to the number of media sessions and having one session in the morning and then qualifying later on.
It should be a good day and I am very much looking forward to it. Be sure to bookmark Richland F1 if you haven’t already for all the latest news and reports. I will also try my best to post some behind-the-scenes images on my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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