After yesterday's media day, the on-track action kicked off today (Friday) as F1 returned to the Hockenheimring for the first time since 2012.
German Grand Prix practice day kick started with a 6:00am alarm, before leaving for the track an hour later to allow plenty of time to get ready for first practice.
We arrived in the F1 paddock at around 8:00am, before getting set up in the media centre. Then I headed to Ferrari with Luke Smith (F1 writer for NBCSN and my boss at Richland F1), Phillip Horton (F1 Zone) and Mike Seymour (GPUpdate) for breakfast, which was very nice indeed.
Soon it was time for the first session, which was relatively busy and was topped by Nico Rosberg on home soil. All eyes were on Susie Wolff as she completed her second FP1 run for Williams, replacing Valtteri Bottas.
After the disappointment of Silverstone, she had a productive session and finished just two tenths behind Felipe Massa. There were plenty of off-track excursions as the drivers tackled the track without the FRIC suspension system and started to find the limits of their cars.
It was then time for the GP2 practice session, which I covered for Richland F1’s sister website RumbleStripNews. Once that report had been posted, it was off to hear from Wolff after her FP1 run. She was pleased with her running despite an early scare with a sensor calibration issue.
Not long after returning to the media centre, it was time for the second session. It was a Mercedes one-two yet again, but this time it was Lewis Hamilton who was fastest after moving ahead of his team-mate on the option tyre.
It was a nightmare of a session for Caterham, with Marcus Ericsson slowing after just six minutes and Kamui Kobayashi stopping with an hour to go with smoke pouring from his CT05. Ericsson was able to get back on track later on but Kobayashi’s day was over.
Friday is unusual in the fact that there aren’t too many post-practice media sessions in the team motorhomes. Most of them are for TV only, but I was able to get plenty of posts up from the press releases issues later in the day - as well as covering the GP2 qualifying session.
You can see all of those – including reaction from Kimi Raikkonen, Daniel Ricciardo and Jenson Button – right here.
We then headed to the media car park and travelled back to the hotel, where I was able to relax and eat some food before getting up a new Richland F1 feature, a gallery of Octane Photographic images, and writing this blog post.
It was another long but very enjoyable day in the F1 paddock. I really am living the dream. However, it was made trickier by the scorching heat at the Hockenheimring. The temperature peaked at around 35 degrees, but in the paddock it felt like a lot more.
Tomorrow (Saturday) is the busiest day of the weekend, with third practice and qualifying as well as plenty of media sessions. 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. It should be another interesting day of on-track action.
We arrived in the F1 paddock at around 8:00am, before getting set up in the media centre. Then I headed to Ferrari with Luke Smith (F1 writer for NBCSN and my boss at Richland F1), Phillip Horton (F1 Zone) and Mike Seymour (GPUpdate) for breakfast, which was very nice indeed.
Soon it was time for the first session, which was relatively busy and was topped by Nico Rosberg on home soil. All eyes were on Susie Wolff as she completed her second FP1 run for Williams, replacing Valtteri Bottas.
After the disappointment of Silverstone, she had a productive session and finished just two tenths behind Felipe Massa. There were plenty of off-track excursions as the drivers tackled the track without the FRIC suspension system and started to find the limits of their cars.
 |
| © Octane Photographic |
It was then time for the GP2 practice session, which I covered for Richland F1’s sister website RumbleStripNews. Once that report had been posted, it was off to hear from Wolff after her FP1 run. She was pleased with her running despite an early scare with a sensor calibration issue.
Not long after returning to the media centre, it was time for the second session. It was a Mercedes one-two yet again, but this time it was Lewis Hamilton who was fastest after moving ahead of his team-mate on the option tyre.
It was a nightmare of a session for Caterham, with Marcus Ericsson slowing after just six minutes and Kamui Kobayashi stopping with an hour to go with smoke pouring from his CT05. Ericsson was able to get back on track later on but Kobayashi’s day was over.
Friday is unusual in the fact that there aren’t too many post-practice media sessions in the team motorhomes. Most of them are for TV only, but I was able to get plenty of posts up from the press releases issues later in the day - as well as covering the GP2 qualifying session.
You can see all of those – including reaction from Kimi Raikkonen, Daniel Ricciardo and Jenson Button – right here.
 |
| © Octane Photographic |
We then headed to the media car park and travelled back to the hotel, where I was able to relax and eat some food before getting up a new Richland F1 feature, a gallery of Octane Photographic images, and writing this blog post.
It was another long but very enjoyable day in the F1 paddock. I really am living the dream. However, it was made trickier by the scorching heat at the Hockenheimring. The temperature peaked at around 35 degrees, but in the paddock it felt like a lot more.
Tomorrow (Saturday) is the busiest day of the weekend, with third practice and qualifying as well as plenty of media sessions. 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. It should be another interesting day of on-track action.
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