"We flew from Gatwick airport on Wednesday afternoon straight into Valencia which was quite handy because sometimes we have to fly to Barcelona and than drive down from there to the circuit. For the weekend we rented a house about 20km from the circuit as renting a motor home was very difficult.
"On Thursday we went to the circuit to get everything prepared and have a look over data from myself last year and Jeremy (McWilliams) 3 years ago. Later that afternoon
BMW held a car testing session where riders and team bosses could test any car in the BMW range for what was supposed to be one lap around the circuit which was quite funny.
"I got there a bit late but as I turned up Shakey and Jeremy were just taking out the BMW 645s. All the way around the lap you could hear screeching from the tyres and then they went flat out past everybody on the start/finish straight for another lap, and then another!
"Because I got there a bit late I only got to test the new 1 series 2 litre diesel which was good. It was pretty quick and I gave it a bit of a hammering with my Dad as co-driver! The car I normally drive at home is tiptronic so it's been quite a long time since I've used a clutch in a car. On the way down into the last corner I went straight from 5th gear down to 2nd, locked the rear wheels and backed it in! My Dad reckons that's the first time he's seen a diesel rev to 20,000rpm!
"On Friday morning it was very cold but at least it was dry. Normally the grip at Valencia is consistent no matter what time of year you go there but the grip level was very low because of the temperature. I've done plenty of laps around Valencia in the past, as it's a main test track, so it didn't take long to get back into the flow of the circuit.
