From Senna's brilliance to tragedy: Tim Wright’s F1 testing tales
As Formula 1 prepares for the start of its three-day test in Bahrain this week, Autosport's technical consultant recalls days with McLaren and Benetton when testing was a far bigger part of an engineer's role
We all know the expression “an army marches on its stomach”, yet during my early days testing with McLaren - when we were just a handful of guys - we had to find our own food during the day. Before lunchtime, we sent the truckies off to the local shop for bread, ham and cheese and we made our own sandwiches, or to the local pizzeria.
On one occasion we were testing at Imola and parked next to us was the Williams team. To our complete envy, they turned up with a motorhome (the first anyone had seen a test team have) and proceeded to roll out an awning with a few tables and chairs laid out underneath.
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