Formula One tests at Cheste - for a fiver!

€5 buys a day at the races with the Formula One testing at Cheste near Valencia

Another day, another event.

Valencia never ceases to amaze with its constant barrage of new things to do, and today was no different. Usually my beef is that a great event was staged, but there was no advanced promotion so we missed it or we only found out about it at the last minute. Well, this event, we did find out about yesterday, through the excellent regular weekly email from Comunitat Valenciana, but we also got wind of it through a visitor who'd read about the Formula One testing and trials at Cheste (just outside Valencia) in the Daily Telegraph! A quick 20 minutes car journey towards Madrid and we were at the course - at €5 per person this must be one of the best value deals anywhere in Spain, and that's saying something. Mind you, the noise - if you haven't been before - is deafening and shocking as the cars whiz past (I once went to the trials at Silverstone and didn't like the noise - or pollution then either!). Out of around 200 photographs taken, only 50 are moderately presentable (available on Flickr to the determined viewer!) and that was mainly because by the time the camera shutter was depressed, the cars had moved on another quarter of a mile!


If the America's Cup Yacht Race didn't already do it, Valencia is set to really hit the big time in August 2008 with the first of a series of Formula One European Grand Prix - on a brand new (yet-to-be-constructed) course around the America's Cup Port

If this is the precursor to Valencia's European Grand Prix in August 2008, then it should be an exciting time for all people living and visiting here - there were several thousand spectators at the course today - just for the testing - so for the real thing, we can expect a serious throng!


Entire trailer villages are created to keep each racing driver on the road... this is the entourage for just one team!

Not normally an avid fan of motorsports, one can nevertheless see where the excitement emanates. For me, the real eye-opener is the absolutely obscene amounts of money that must be invested in these cars, the teams and indeed the entire motor racing industry - I only hope it has real benefits further down the foodchain with development of Vauxhall Vectras and the like...