The qualifying sessions are becoming more entertaining than the races, judging by the French GP and today’s session at Hockenheim. The Ferraris were quick, just as we expected, but Alonso failed to provide a serious challenge to them. That was left to Kimi Raikkonen, who threw in a very quick lap to take pole position on his first set of new tires. It mattered not that later he went farming in the McLaren when trying to better his time – he had done enough already.

The Hondas bounced back from their run of bad form, Button taking fourth spot and Barrichello sixth. And the Toyotas were disappointing, only Ralf managing to make it to Q3 and then slotting in at eighth.

It’s all a bit confusing as regards tires. If the Bridgestones had retained their advantage, we would expect the Toyotas to have done better. The Ferraris look very strong, however, and Michael must be favorite for the race in spite of Raikkonen’s amazing lap. Kimi often makes the McLaren look better than it is, so it is easy to assume that his time was the product of genius alone, something that will be almost impossible for him to maintain throughout the race distance tomorrow.

Or will it? The speed of the Hondas suggests that Michelin are at least on a par with Bridgestone in Germany. And we should not forget that the removal of the mass dampers from the Ferraris and Renaults may have adversely affected their performance, especially in Alonso’s Renault. It is hard to think of anything else that could have caused the sudden loss of form from Renault.

So maybe we are seeing the reality of life without mass dampers and the McLarens are as good as they looked today. Pedro de la Rosa finished in ninth spot, which is not a bad effort after his earlier coming together with Ralf’s Toyota.

All of which is bad news for Alonso and good for Michael Schumacher. Even if Kimi proves equal to the task of winning the GP tomorrow, Michael should finish no lower than second while Fernando will have to work hard to bag a decent number of points. The Ferrari team have said that they need help from the other teams if Michael is to catch Alonso in the championship – a McLaren resurgence would be just what they need. If Renault weren’t sweating already, they should start now!

One final word for the guy who grabbed tenth position: David Coulthard. Once again he proved that experience counts and confirms himself as the best buy outside the trio of star drivers. If he can produce such good results in a Red Bull, how would he fare in a Renault or Ferrari?

So at last Michael has managed to break Alonso’s winning streak by netting his fifth Indianapolis victory. I’ll say nothing about the convenience of his passing his team mate, Felipe Massa, in the first pit stop. After all, I have never had anything against team orders, knowing that they have been a part of F1 since its inception.

The race was interesting from several aspects. It was clear, for instance, that Bridgestone had an advantage over Michelin at this track. And this was obviously the result of Michelin going conservative in its determination not to have a repeat of last year’s fiasco, in spite of all their denials. Both the extent of Ferrari’s superiority in practice and the race and Toyota’s sudden equality with Renault were adequate demonstration of this. I have no doubt that things will return to normal once the teams re-assemble in Magny Cours for the French Grand Prix.

Trulli’s drive from last to fourth place was magnificent, even taking the tire advantage into account. And it is a shame that Ralf had to retire his Toyota before reaping the rewards of an impressive drive. It seems that Indy loves one Schumacher but hates the other.

For me, however, the high point in the race came at the moment Liuzzi managed to slip by Rosberg. He was driving what only a short time ago was called a Minardi; this must surely be the only time in history that a Minardi has passed a Williams, albeit in Toro Rosso form. How the mighty are fallen.

Speaking of Toro Rosso, we are reminded of Scott Speed and how sad we were to see him eliminated in the multi-car pile up at Turn 2 on the first lap. Liuzzi showed that the Toro Rosso was better than expected on this circuit and Scott might well have been able to score a point or two if he had avoided the accident. I can only hope that America will continue to follow his fortunes for the rest of the season, now that he has had some media coverage.

That pile up also gave us the rare sight of the McLarens taking each other out. Shades of the Prost/Senna days. Montoya gets the blame, although an accident always looked inevitable in that frantic scramble for position. It’s been a while, too, since we saw an F1 car somersaulting through the air as did Heidfeld’s BMW Sauber.

Finally, there is the excellent performance of Fisichella, for once in the better Renault. For the first stint he was the only one to stand a remote chance of staying with the Ferraris and, when even that chance disappeared, he kept to his task and grabbed third place. It was a timely reminder that he is no slouch when his luck holds out.

So it was an interesting race in spite of all the retirements. And Michael has clawed back some of Alonso’s advantage in points. Nineteen seems a huge gap until one realizes that it’s only two race wins against two retirements. Keep finishing those races, Fernando!

I was thinking today about the bland press releases and statements made by F1 teams and their drivers prior to a GP, when it occurred to me that there might be a principle at work here. Is it possible that teams perform in direct inverse proportion to the excitement value of their public pronouncements?

Looking at the press releases, this theory falls down immediately – they are all uniformly berefit of entertainment value and shattering surprises – but there is reason to believe it might hold good for the drivers. Think of all those post-race press conferences (what my young son used to call “the glasses of water”) and the delivery style of the successful three. By my theory, Kimi Raikkonen would be the clear winner, both for flatness of speech and for driving speed (admittedly, he has a huge advantage in being Finnish). Fernando Alonso would be next up and then we could let Michael Schumacher have a look in. It sounds strangely similar to how we rate their driving ability.

Ralf is considerably more animated and probably more truthful than his brother, yet is rated below him on the track. Jacques Villeneuve is outspoken and good for a scandal or two but seems past his best when it comes to driving. And good old David Coulthard can provide us with the control part of our experiment – he is mid-range in everything, solid and dependable in both press conference and race.

Looking back, probably the most entertaining driver in recent years was Johnny Herbert. He was always ready to crack a joke and make light of disasters. Perhaps this happened to him after he mangled his ankles in a pre-F1 accident, thereby forever preventing him from joining the top rank of boring interviewees and fast drivers.

Of course, we must make allowance for the fact that most drivers are not answering in their native tongues; it must be quite difficult to relax and joke when speaking a foreign language. Yet Michael Schumacher manages to be smooth enough in English to convince us that he has a complete grasp of it. And most of the others are fluent enough to have a style.

The native English speakers seem to give the lie to my theory at first glance. Jenson Button can be quite amusing and has even been known to smile for the cameras. But are we seeing a secret unveiled here? Is Jenson really as good a driver as we wish he was? Perhaps Barrichello could give us some answers on that one.

So the theory looks as if it holds true in general. I propose it in jest only but don’t be surprised if you see Frank Williams and Ron Dennis taking more than the usual interest in their drivers’ press conferences in future…