iWitness in Valencia: Thursday

Posted on Thursday 20 Aug 2009 and tagged with iwitness, valencia, spain.

The F1 world returns to work this weekend, having enjoyed a two-week factory shutdown since the Hungarian Grand Prix. The engineers weren’t allowed to work during this enforced break, so it was holidays all round. “I think the divorce rate in F1 will go up,” said Williams F1’s Technical Director Sam Michael before heading to the south of France with his family. We’re delighted to report that Sam’s still married…

Nico Rosberg received an unexpected wake-up call while on holiday in Ibiza last week. He was woken at 0700 by a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and was duly given a random drugs test. “My girlfriend took the call,” says Nico, “so it was lucky that the test took place at all because she doesn’t like being woken up early while on holiday!”

The AT&T Williams motorhome didn’t return to the UK after the last race in Hungary and while parked up in Austria during the summer break it had a brick thrown through a window. Could it have come from an angry Michael Schumacher fan, after team boss Frank Williams vetoed Schumi’s request to test a 2009-spec Ferrari? Makes you wonder…

A belated happy birthday to our PR guru Silvia Hoffer, who turned a year older on 7th August. You don’t look a day over 30, Silvia! And, finally, to Frank Williams and his wife, Ginny, who are celebrating 35 years of marriage today, many congratulations to you both!