Waiting at Algeciras port.

My journey from Monza to Algeciras is complete. It was nice to leave the cold Italian weather behind me and whilst it is not perfect sunshine in Spain, at least it is much warmer. The driving conditions have been good and there have been alot of cars on the Autovia, due to the Easter holidays. The excellent Spanish road network has enabled me to average 700kms a day. I have just looked at all my road toll tickets and it has cost my company 319 Euros to travel from Italy to Spain.

 I have taken my carnet and other paperwork to the customs office and I am now waiting for this to be checked, stamped and returned to me. I cannot buy a ticket for the boat to Morocco until this is done.
I have met some of the WTCC and Auto GP Truckies who have arrived already and they are waiting for their customs clearance as well.
There is a ban on trucks using some of the Spanish roads during this holiday period. The border crossings are closed for trucks and there is a 100km exclusion zone around Madrid. There are also a couple of localised truck bans around Spain but I think that all of the other race trucks are already in Spain so they will be unaffected. The only team that may have a problem is the Lada team. After being forced to return to their factory in France to rebuild their cars. If they try to come into Spain before the truck ban is finished on Monday evening, they may have to be very polite to the Spanish police and tell them that they have to be at the race in Morocco.
I have filled up the diesel tanks and the AdBlue tank, ready for the 1300km journey to Marrakesh and back to the port. The fuel prices in Morocco are cheaper than Spain but I do not want to have a problem with my credit cards not being accepted or not having enough cash money to pay for fuel. There is a Shell filling station, which some trucks have used before, on the motorway but the other filling stations are Moroccan companies so I think it is better to be safe than sorry.

This winter has seen many of the teams not doing any winter testing. The trucks have sat still and their first big journey was to Monza. Unfortunately for some teams, they had problems with their trucks. Reports of gearbox problems, failed engine sensors, brake problems and three tyre punctures caused unnecessary headaches for some of the Truckies. The new Honda team seem to have 2 new Renault trucks for this season and the Think Tank guys who put up the advertising banners at the circuits, also had a couple of brand new 500HP Scanias which look very nice indeed. BLING BLING.

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