Jerez - Thursday

I pulled out of the well-lit Malaga Airport car hire area, into the well-lit airport road about 2130 last night, about 5 minutes later I find myself on the unlit motorway desperately trying to find the light switch on the hire car, before either I crash it because I can't see or somebody crashes into my stealth black Seat Leon because they can't see me ... Doh! Note to self, check you know where the switches are before driving off in your hire car!

An hour or so to the south-west down to Algeciras, then a turn to the west towards Jerez, another hour and I was in the centre of Jerez at midnight. 

The organisers have given us hotel accommodation here, well some of it anyway, very good of them! Most of the racers are in one or other of two hotels, and there was a concerted effort to get the Formula Junior crowd into the same hotel, so it should be pretty social.

The circuit is 20mins away, and I got out there about 1000 this morning, Iain and the boys were still en route, but not far away, so I walked the circuit. Beautiful day, warm sun, barely a cloud. I've never been here before, but have seen plenty of racing from here over the years, well the tv doesn't show you the undulation, the first corner in particular is really quite uphill. The kerbs look useable, even for me, and my car doesn't really like much kerb... But the circuit looks quite technical, fortunately there are quite a lot of features trackside to help you learn your braking points, turn-in, etc., one climbing turn runs into the long back straight, and that corner looks critical to the lap time, so I hope we can get the gearing right for that one! At the end of the straight is where Schumacher tried to take out Villeneuve in 1997.

Iain arrived, with Martin and Josh in the van behind him, we unload the seven cars, although two aren't racing here, but only next week end. Kim is here, and more and more people arrive through the day. Mike Bell has also arrived with his big rig bringing three cars. More Aussies, Don and Jeanette Thallon, with a pair of cars in their van and trailer, all brought over from Oz for the summer, so still driving round on Aussie plates, I imagine people must do a double-take when they clock that!

Later in the day I manage to halve my lap-time ... By running the circuit with Iain, still pretty warm, must have sweated a kg or so ... I'm hoping that I might be able to psyche out the Bond crew and driver Andrew Tart, who've pitched camp alongside us ... But they don't seem fazed!!

On track for free (not free!) practice fairly early in the morning, will let you know how it goes.