With little else to focus on, the spotlight moves to Bahrain and the first day’s testing for the nine teams that made the trip. Ferrari are fastest and Massa quicker than Raikkonen, confirming both the team’s position as pre-season favorites and the increasing expectation that the Brazilian will beat the Finn. But what’s this – Button next up? Have Honda been “doing a Red Bull” to impress some visiting dignitary?

Apparently not, for there in fifth spot lurks Barrichello. It must be that Honda are making progress with the new car and we are beginning to see its true potential. With McLaren and BMW still right up there, we could be in for a real dogfight of a season – a fine way to celebrate Michael Schumacher’s retirement.

Renault and Red Bull must be worried, however. They may claim that the times mean nothing because they’re still learning the characteristics of the cars and getting them set up right, but the same is true for the other teams. With everyone getting to grips with their new cars, they are all going to go faster, leaving the Renault-powered teams that much more to do.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the speed of Davidson in the interim Super Aguri. I begin to wonder if this team’s real talent is in taking old machinery and making it more competitive than it ever was in its heyday. And, if that is true, they might get the Honda 2006 chassis to perform wonders – reason indeed for Spyker and Williams to be concerned. In fact, if SA can continue to beat Renault and Red Bull, there might be a long line of legal writs awaiting the Japanese team at the Australian GP.

It is to be hoped that the threatened litigation fizzles out when it comes to practice in Melbourne, however. Lawsuits do nothing for the image of the sport and only make lawyers richer. Given the lateness of the launch of the SA and Toro Rosso cars for 2007 and their lack of testing therefore, it is unlikely that they will do better than make up the tail end of the grid – in which case, it hardly seems worth anyone making a fuss over the legality of their cars.

Never mind the hype and speculation – let the races begin!

Well, there ya go – what did I tell ya? No sooner do I mention that the teams seem to be taking it in turns to go fastest in testing than Red Bull hit the front. Okay, it may have been a stunt for the visiting Dietrich Mateschitz, owner of the team, but at least it proves that the RB3 can go quickly when it’s light on fuel and has new tires. And it must have been pleasant for David Coulthard to grab the best time – it’s been a while since he did that.

Joking aside, Red Bull have got to be a little worried about the pace of the RB3. They know what had to be done to give DC the chance for top spot and that it has no relevance for the actual races at all. Much more telling is the car’s consistency in being a low midfield runner in testing, just as the BMW has been consistently near the front. If there is a pointer to race performance in testing, it is consistency, not single lap times.

What worries me, however, is Honda’s apparent lack of pace. So far their testing times have been nowhere near the front and my prediction of Button for champion begins to look very optimistic indeed. I console myself with the thought that in previous seasons they have looked good in testing, only to disappoint once the races started. Maybe this time they are getting things the right way around.

It is also true that the early races can give a false impression of what is to follow. Time and again we have seen a team do well at first and then fade away once the circus gets to Europe. My hope has to be that Honda are concentrating on quiet development and will come good once the season gets into its stride.

That might be the case for Red Bull as well, of course. But I have my doubts on that score. The team is hungry for success and has two drivers who are starved of good publicity – if they could put in a few good times, I feel sure that they would. Honda, however, have been there, done that, and know that it counts for nothing in the long run. If anyone is sandbagging, they are.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself…

Anthony Davidson has been talking about his career and hopes for the future. His contract with Super Aguri is his first season-long chance in F1 competition and he wants to make the best of it. Five years as a test driver is a long apprenticeship.

As might be expected, Davidson thinks that customer cars will be good for the sport, especially as they will mean that new and smaller teams will not be sentenced to an extended period of being back markers, coming in two or three laps down on the rest of the field. Using chassis that have already been through extensive development, such teams could realistically expect to be competitive in a very short time and the spectacle for the fans would be better as a result.

This is all relevant to the looming row over Super Aguri’s intention to use a development of the Honda 2006 car this season, of course. Things are quiet for the fledgling Japanese team at the moment but are bound to heat up if Toro Rosso lose their battle to run a variation of the Red Bull RB3 in 2007. Gerhard Berger seems confident of winning that one so there may be a good chance that SA will get their way too.

Naturally, Davidson wants SA to succeed in their plan as it will give him a good car in which to make his mark in F1. He deserves such a chance in view of his long wait and previous brief debut in a Minardi. Customer cars are coming, like it or not, in 2008 so I think no harm will be done by allowing them this year. It wouldn’t be the first time that rule changes have been instituted ahead of their projected time – we already have a standardized tire formula even though it was not due to happen until next year.

I think the teams protesting about SA’s and TR’s cars are over-reacting anyway. Neither team will suddenly shoot to the front of the field as a result of using good chassis; it will take time for them to get used to the cars and tune them in for optimum running. And even Adrian Newey has been trying to deflate some of the hype surrounding his RB3, pointing out that it is unrealistic to expect it to be a world beater right from the start.

Let the second teams have a decent chance, say I, and then we’ll get some really competitive races. And we might even get to see how good Davidson is.

Another Brit whose stock is increasing is Gary Paffett. If Prodrive are to be a sort of B team for McLaren/Mercedes next year, they will need drivers. Gary’s position as a McLaren test driver puts him in pole position as one of Prodrive’s line-up. Ideally, they would want an experienced driver as number one (David Coulthard maybe?) and Gary could slot in as the young hotshoe. On his past record, he would be ideal for the task.

Good old Mario Theissen is keeping me going with press releases, it seems. Today he is outlining BMW’s approach to F1, insisting that they will take the radical route, in similar fashion to Honda’s.

That was what I liked about BMW Sauber in 2006 – they were always experimenting (I’m still trying to work out what those vertical wings were supposed to achieve) and unafraid of controversy (as with the flexi-wing saga). In fact, Theissen seems to have discovered the secret of success in F1 – to remain a small team even though owned by a manufacturer.

It’s only an impression but one gets the feeling with McLaren, for instance, that Mercedes looms ever larger over them. The German giant must be getting very impatient for success and I can see the rumors of a takeover proving correct in the future. Toyota and, to a lesser extent, Honda have their company management looking over their shoulders and even Ferrari is becoming more a division of FIAT.

BMW seem to be following the example of Renault; although the French board of directors is happy when their team wins, they do not appear to interfere and the team looks more like Briatore’s than Renault’s. Back-to-back championships show that this is the way to go, allowing the team to make decisions and react to changing situations as quickly as only small teams can.

The odd one out in all this is Red Bull, of course. It seems a strange combination of small team and huge company, involved in F1 for the prestige and marketing value, yet with an investment so massive that one wonders how it can possibly profit from the operation. I suspect that the real reason behind Red Bull’s ownership of two teams is that the boss, Dietrich Mateschitz, loves motor sport. And, when you have as much money as he does, who cares if millions get spent on winning a few races?

Mateschitz isn’t the first to spend a fortune on his passion – Lord Hesketh nearly bankrupted himself in the seventies doing exactly that. And Benetton had a fling before selling out to Renault and going back to knitting sweaters. Running two teams seems a little over the top, however, and I wonder how long such a venture can continue. It remains to be seen whether Adrian Newey can design a car that justifies all that expense.

Returning to BMW, it does seem that they are getting things right. Theissen’s caution in setting goals is the one fly in the ointment, however. Consider this statement:

“The problem is as soon as you achieve something, expectations raise quicker than you can follow,” he said. “And, to be realistic, we have always said that we want to achieve podiums out of our own strength in 2007 – and that hasn’t changed.

“We had one podium out of our own strength in 2006, which was Monza due to a superb job of the aerodynamicists. And this year we need to do that more often. That is our target.

“And then if some cars in front of us fail, then we have to be there and maybe get something more. But it would not be realistic to win a race out of our own strength.”

Realism is a fine thing and there is little enough of that in most teams’ hopes for the future. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a go at winning. BMW had a couple of podium finishes last year – why not try for the top step this time round?