A second RB3 was available today in Valencia, allowing both Coulthard and Webber to run at the same time. This was the first day of proper dry testing the team has done and 82 laps were completed between the two Red Bull Racing drivers. The team will be staying on for an extra day tomorrow to make up time lost due to the weather earlier in the week.

1		R. Schumacher			Toyota			1:11.297		60L
2		G. Fisichella			Renault			1:11.621		121L
3		H. Kovalainen			Renault			1:11.643		108L
13		D. Coulthard			RBR			1:13.450		59L
16		M. Webber			RBR			1:13.796		23L

On Tuesday Mark Webber was wearing a completely new white helmet in testing. He explained the helmet was a try-out for Red Bull’s chief designer Adrian Newey.

Webber explained speaking to F1Racing.net: “I’m trying a new Arai helmet. Adrian Newey wanted me to try the helmet just for legality. It’s not for me, but Adrian wanted to try it on Tuesday. It worked fine and we’re just trying it, but there’s no paintjob, obviously.”

The following day Webber explained his relationship and working with Newey as ‘bloody good’

“I’ve been lucky to work with brilliant engineers in the past. Patrick Head has an amazing amount of experience, Frank Dernie and Pat Symonds as well, but Adrian is something different. Don’t challenge him in a math contest!”

David Coulthard continued testing the RB3 at Valencia today, finishing 15th in the standings over 3 seconds down on the days quickest man Fernando Alonso. Details are still sketchy, but it appears DC completed 23 laps by lunchtime in wet conditions, and was running as high as 4th. As the track dried out and warmed up the times tumbled by over 5 seconds, DC only managed to complete one more lap all afternoon in the better conditions; possible technical difficulties for the RB3? Testing continues tomorrow, February 1st.

In other news, Oliver White over at BlogF1 has been running a series of articles recently where he talks to people who run F1 sites and blogs; he finds out what makes them tick and what they think about modern F1. I was approached to join in and ofcourse I agreed, BlogF1 is a great site that I read daily (and so should you) so I was more than willing to take part, and you can now read my interview on the site. Pretty basic stuff from me but hopefully you enjoy it, there are other interviews on the site as well so theres plenty of interesting reading there on top of Olivers top notch regular work.

Well after I went and hyped up this first day of testing at Valencia it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the days running was mostly ruined by the weather. Mark only managed to complete a handful of laps in the wet morning session, and as the day wore on and the track dried out he ended up in the gravel trap making the final times of not much use to us (Mark was second last, but ahead of a Ferrari so nothing can be made of the results).

It was an interesting day, with Fernando Alonso punting off Luca Badoer for no apparant reason. Alonso has been known for using his car to make a point with other drivers in practice and testing sessions, though footage of this incident suggests the double world champion simply made a mistake in the tricky conditions. He wasn’t the only one, with many cars seen trundling through the run off areas. The only other points of interest was BMW blowing an engine and Webber running an all white helmet, perhaps indicating a change of supplier. Hopefully tomorrow will be dry and the RB3 can have a full day of trouble free running.

1		F. Alonso		McLaren		1:12.563		85L
2		N. Piquet jr.		Renault		1:13.549		27L
3		F. Montagny		Toyota		1:13.672		33L
13		M. Webber		RBR		1:15.726		27L

* These times are not 100% verified, Renault, Autosport, F1.com and F1Racing are all giving different times so no need to contact me if you see differing times.

Today is a big day for Red Bull Racing team and their drivers Mark Webber and David Coulthard. After last weeks two shakedown days the team will take their new car, the RB3, to it’s first proper days of testing at Valencia. The three day test will be attended by the RBR, Ferrari, Renault, McLaren, BMW, Honda, Williams and Super Aguri outfits. While Williams and Super Aguri will still be running their interim test cars the rest will be running with their 2007 challengers and the times will be open to public viewing.

Championship points aren’t awarded for testing, and undoubtably many teams including Red Bull will still be ironing the kinks out of their cars before they move onto the serious work of setting the cars up for racing but initial testing can still give us an idea of the strengths of each teams vehicles. A fundamentally good car will be quick right out of the blocks, and with the RB3 being the newest of the cars attending if it comes in anywhere near the top of the timesheets over the three days then Coulthard and Webber will be well pleased.

Ofcourse if the opposite happens it doesn’t mean the season is over, teams will be going through their own programs using different compounds, fuel loads and aerodynamic kits in an effort to test the cars in different conditions and validate wind tunnel figures at various levels of downforce. The teams keep this information close to their chests so we won’t get a definate idea of the running order until a few races into the ‘07 season.

Both David and Mark will be driving the RB3 throughout the course of the biggest test of the winter.

I just want to say thankyou to Ryan who has donated a bit of hard earned cash to the Mark Webber Blog, it’s very kind of him. In return I’ll post a few races were DC does better than average since he’s a massive Coulthard fan. The first race I’ve put up for him is Australia 1997, which involves a race long battle between Frentzen, Schumacher (Michael) and ofcourse David who was at that stage just starting his second year at McLaren. Everyone can download the race obviously, it’s now up in the downloads section.