Dan

No. They tested 2017 compounds at Silverstone, but on tyres made to the current dimensions.

Much cheaper than the last test in 2014 – I paid £30 at the gate for that. A two-day ticket next week is £15.

I think they charge about 10 Euros for testing at Barcelona too.

The article mentions that Mercedes will be testing a 2014 chassis at Silverstone next week. I assume this is in addition to their 2016 car?

Certainly is. I was just going from past experience though – in 2008 I saw every driver on the grid across the two days, and in 2014 the majority of them were race drivers, just a couple of test/reserve […]

I’ve booked a hotel to attend both days of this test, hoping to see some race drivers in action. So far I don’t recognise any of the names announced, and I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have bothered…

I’ve seen similar comments on a couple of forums and I’m not really sure what people are getting at – he may be a “wonder kid”, but Jenson is usually partnered with Fernando Alonso… Do you think he’s just […]

In Jenson’s case, it has nothing to do with McLaren, he has always had a white halo going back to his karting days. He had it at Williams, BAR, Honda, Brawn etc and most often without any sponsor logos in there – […]

Glad Button has gone back to the blue and red. Still not as good as his classic design when he had a Bell helmet, but nicer than the red design from last year.

Alonso’s is nice (especially from the front), his […]

Hamilton is Bell, Vettel is Arai, Rosberg is Schuberth.

Old cars aren’t as expensive as you’d think – the prices on new ones have risen so much in the last few years that it’s basically knocked the stuffing out of the hobby and as a result, the second hand values on […]

Agree with you regarding Button’s old design – for me that was up there with the very best designs of all time, and I especially loved the simplified version that he used in late 2008/pre-season 2009 with block, […]

Jenson’s had the white band as a feature of his helmet designs since before he entered F1. It was left without sponsor logos during his years at BAR/Honda/Brawn too, not just recently at McLaren.

I just wish […]

Vettel’s comment reminded me of this amusing little VT on German culture from ITV F1 back in 2008…

On the BBC R5L commentary on Friday, Jennie Gow said that Jenson Button has a new helmet design for this weekend. I’ve not seen it in any of the TV coverage so far…?

Agreed. He had some cool variations on the old design too – the St George’s design from 2004/2006, the Carbon and White version from winter testing 2007 and the Black and Green Monster design from Race of […]

Was it also not said that he set a string of fastest laps whilst he was languishing in 14th place? Probably pushing the tyres hard to recover lost ground before calling it a day.

I was impressed with his race […]

China 2009 he won in a white helmet with black flowers on it (the one labelled as Malaysia 2009). Confusing because he often wears two or three across a weekend, but he took the flag in the white design.

Team kit is always very expensive. Not something I’m fussed about personally, as it’s out of date within months and available heavily discounted.

I do collect the Minichamps model cars – prices on those have […]