Formula One Winter Testing in Valenica

2011 F1 Testing dates

Valencia (February 1-3)
Jerez (February 10-13)
Barcelona (February 18-21)
Bahrain (March 3-6)

The Valencia test will be at the Cheste Circuit, Valencia Spain.

There is no guarantee what teams will be running on the days or locations. But with Valencia being the first offical test day, expect a number of teams to be there testing and launching thir cars around the date of the first test.

For example Force India’s 2011 F1 car will make its first appearance in the second test of the year at Jerez. The VJM03 will remain in service for the first test 2011 at Valencia.

Mercedes GP will launch their 2011 car in the Valencia pit lane ahead of the first multi-team test of the year. The MGP W02 will be unveiled in front of the team’s garage on the morning of February 1 at the Spanish circuit, before it's given its on-track debut later in the day. Mercedes GP’s driver line-up for the 2011 season, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, will be on hand to meet the media at the launch.

Sauber and Renault will also be launching their new cars in Valencia on January 31, whilst Toro Rosso will reveal their 2011 car a day later.



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High Speed train cuts the time between Valencia and Madrid

Spain hurtled past France as Europe's high speed rail leader last month when it opened a 6.6-billion-euro line from Madrid to Valencia, banking on a boost to the economy.

The 438-kilometre route, which opened on December 19, slashes travel time between the Spanish capital and the Mediterranean port of Valencia, Spain's third-biggest city, from four hours to just 90 minutes.

The project, built at a cost of 6.6 billion euros ($A8.6 billion), brings Spain's high-speed rail network to 2056 kilometres.

Advertisement: Story continues below It places Spain ahead of the 1896 kilometres of high speed rail in France and 1285 kilometres in Germany, home to Siemens, the world's largest manufacturer of high-speed trains.

Spain's high-speed train service, known as Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE), boasts trains with noses shaped like a duck-billed platypus moving at speeds of up to 300 kph.

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Jet2 Holidays offers great value low cost flights and holiday packages to top resorts on the Costa Blanca, like Benidorm, Torrevieja and Calpe.

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El Vergel Safari Park closes after 33 years

FALLING NUMBERS of visitors and competition from more modern attractions have forced the closure of El Vergel Safari Park after 33 years.
A trickle of cars arrived last Friday only to find gates were closed and be turned away from the once-popular attraction by security staff.
One told RTN: “We are closed – everything is closed.”

However, he confirmed keepers would be caring for some 460 animals over the next six months as they undergo health checks and found new homes under strict guideline covering their movement.

The closure is a blow for locals who worked with animals or in the restaurant and bar.
A once ground-breaking attraction on the Marina Alta, it allowed visitors to watch animals wandering ‘semi-wild’ in enclosures and boasted 1,400 animals of some 150 different species.
The park covered half a million square metres close to Pego Marshes and also had an important collection of over 150 types of fauna.

TUMBLE
However, the number of tourists passing through the gates has tumbled from a golden age of 250,000 a year to fewer than 15,000.
It is understood the safari park failed to keep pace with new attractions such as Terra Natura in Benidorm and Valencia’s L’Oceanografic and Bioparc.
El Vergel allowed visitors to drive through the enclosures housing a menagerie of Bengal tigers, lions, water buffalo, elephants, giraffes, rhinoceros, and 25 Vietnamese pigs. Other attractions included a sea lion show and a large aviary.
The park also made news by taking part in breeding programmes for wild animals.

However, El Vergel made international headlines for the wrong reasons in May 1999. Disregarding all warning notices, an elderly German couple got out of their car and were killed by three tigers.

From the roundtownnews.co.k

A perfunctory “ Hereby we inform (you) of the indefinite closure of our facilities .Without further ado, Greetings” was the poignant and solitary message posted on Vergel Safari Parks website last Wednesday September 9, informing the world that after thirty three years the Park was to close its doors for the very last time.

The recession and competition from other tourist attractions such as Terra Natura in Benidorm and Valencia’s Bioparc had all conspired to bring about the demise of one of the Costa Blanca favourite leisure destinations.

Vergel Safari Park had been a pioneer on the Costa Blanca of the then new concept of housing animals in an environment close to their natural habitat as possible, and away from the more confined zoo concept. However, times move on and the newer facilities of the competitors and ever changing mores of the leisure industry, left behind the park struggling to keep up its visitor numbers which had plummeted a massive 80% over the last three years.

The Park occupied some half a million square metres of land next to the Pego marsh, and was home to around one thousand four hundred animals covering one hundred and fifty species. Half of the Parks fifty employees have been made redundant with immediate effect, whilst the remaining staff are being kept on to continue caring for the animals over a six month period during which it is hoped they can all be successfully found new homes.

The economic knock on effect to the Marina Alta area will be felt through the direct unemployment of the workers, and indirectly a drop in trade for the ancillary businesses that benefitted from the tourist influx into the area to visit the Park.

In the long run perhaps the one thing the Park will be remembered for is the incident in 1999, when two German pensioners were killed by a tiger when they unwittingly left their vehicle, thinking they had left the secure area, when in fact they had merely passed from the lion’s enclosure through to that of the tigers.

It would be a pity if this was the only legacy of the Park, which brought so many happy days out over three decades for families throughout the region.

from Euro Weekly News








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Valencia Grand Prix 2011

FIA unveils 20-race 2011 F1 schedule

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council has released the provisional race calendar for the 2011 Formula 1 season, which sees Interlagos regain the season finale for the first time since 2008.

The enlarged 20-race calendar - the longest in F1 history - features an earlier start and later finish than the 2010 season, with the championship-closing Brazilian Grand Prix on 27 November. .

There are once again four back-to-back races - Malaysia and China, Spain and Monaco, Germany and Hungary, and Japan and Korea.

The new Indian Grand Prix at Delhi comes towards the end of the season as part of a series of flyaway races.

The European Geand Prix, held in Valencia, will be over the weekend of the 6th June 2011

2011 F1 calendar:

13/03 Bahrain
27/03 Australia
10/04 Malaysia
17/04 China
08/05 Turkey
22/05 Spain
29/05 Monaco
12/06 Canada
26/06 Europe (Valencia)
10/07 Great Britain
24/07 Germany
31/07 Hungary
28/08 Belgium
11/09 Italy
25/09 Singapore
09/10 Japan
16/10 Korea
30/10 India*
13/11 Abu Dhabi
27/11 Brazil

* Subject to the homologation of the circuit

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Fires in Communidad Valencia Spain

More than 600 people were Tuesday combating three wildfires which forced the evacuation of eight areas in eastern Spain, officials said.

Most of the evacuations were in Valencia province. They were taken as a precaution, the sources said, without giving the number of those who had to leave their homes.

Firefighters were concentrating their efforts in the community of Ontinyent, where about 1,200 people had been evacuated, the daily El Pais said on its website.

Smoke blocked several roads, and rail traffic suffered temporary disruptions. Officials did not exclude the possibility that the fires had been started by arsonists.

Wildfires have devoured more than 20,000 hectares of vegetation in Spain so far this year

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