We all would like to think being a racing driver is a glamorous life.
There are few fans who wouldn’t want the success, money that could buy a country, while attractive men/women hang on your every… well, you.
However, there is a lot of monotony as well. Endless interviews that ask the same questions over and over again, oceans of PR functions and that’s before race preparation and lengthy debrief sessions. And then there’s those days testing.
Of course, it is wonderful to get out on track, but between every set of laps lies a whole lot of tweaking, theorising, examining and – often – not a massive amount of running.
Yesterday, former GP2 Series racer Giacomo Ricci released a video documenting the day in the life of a test run.
The Italian spent a day testing 2013 Pirelli compounds for the GP2/11 machine at Magny Cours in France – or some of it testing, in amongst the seemingly endless hanging around in the garage, waiting for the next window of running to open.
Although only a snapshot, the video hints at the nature of a test day, and the manner in which it can drag. That’s not to say one is sympathetic – there are certainly worse thing one could be doing.
Ricci who competed in six races in this year’s Auto GP World Series, scoring a podium at Marrakech, spent three seasons in GP2’s main series alongside two stints in the now defunct Asia Series. In that time, the 27-year-old scored two wins, both with David Price Racing.
