iWitness in Brazil: Friday

Posted on Friday 31 Oct 2008 and tagged with iwitness, brazil.

Sore heads all round today, following the press officers’ dinner with British F1 broadcaster ITV in Fogo de Chao. Claire Williams sat next to the programme’s anchorman Steve Rider for the second consecutive year and the pair fought back tears at the end of the night when Martin Brundle made a valedictory address. “I’ve worked for many teams in F1,” said Martin, “but none of them has been as good as ITV.”

Williams F1 hospitality manager Katie Aspinall has had a stressful start to her Brazilian GP weekend. When she arrived in the team’s Paddock Club area yesterday, there was no power, no roof, no television feed and there were no chairs. Fast forward to this morning, when she had 128 guests arriving, the only thing missing was white wine. Good on you, Katie.

Waiters rub their hands with glee at the sight of Williams F1 personnel. After Tim Newton’s extortionate wine order on Tuesday night, members of the team were almost ripped off again yesterday when Fogo de Chao tried charging £50 for a glass of cognac during a birthday celebration for paddock club AV man, John Sertori. Fortunately, the female members of the marketing team used their charms to get them removed from the bill!

Rubens Barrichello is sporting a new helmet design this weekend. His lid is in the colours of ex-F1 driver Ingo Hoffmann, who gave Rubens his first ever helmet in 1981. Rubens has always liked to change his colours; at the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix he used Tony Kanaan’s colours. Whose will he use next – Felipe Massa?