Dreams do come true. At 30, my sister Susie Wolff is a development driver for the Williams Formula One team and had her first F1 test last year. Susie trusted me to film over a year of her racing life for my documentary Driven: The Fastest Woman in the World filmed over a year of Susie's racing life, including her testing for Williams.
This weekend the 2013 season starts in Melbourne, Australia and we get to see whether any great strides have been made during the off season. I'm only going to make one prediction in this preview and that is who will win the title: Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing. I am NEVER correct at making predictions so... go Vettel!
I am very happy to report that both our newbies have done just that, and we now head to Melbourne in as good a shape as we could be for this stage of the season. While the work has been going on in Spain, everyone back at the factory has also been pushing as hard as they can to prepare for the season ahead.
This is an incredibly intense week leading up to the first test when the 2013 race car finally takes shape. The chassis is built, checked and painted and then the tens of thousands of parts that make up a modern F1 car are fitted to the chassis, all under a stopwatch that is counting down until the moment the car has to leave our factory.
Heading into 2012, we considered the use of KERS would possibly allow Team Caterham F1 to make a much needed surge in the performance category but they still remain adrift of Toro Rosso. One has to be cautious in thinking that Marussia will experience the types of gains that would have them emerging from the back of the grid.