Colin Kolles of Spyker is orchestrating the protest against Toro Rosso’s and Super Aguri’s plans to run cars based on their owner teams’ cars next year. So far Ferrari, McLaren, Toyota, Williams (who first mentioned the problem) and Red Bull (surprisingly) have confirmed their support for Spyker’s initiative.

We might wonder why Red Bull have agreed, since their RB3 is rumored to be the basis of Toro Rosso’s car for 2007, but it is all in the interpretation of the rules, apparently. Section 3 of the Concorde Agreement states:

A constructor is a person (including any incorporated or unincorporated body) who owns the intellectual property rights to the rolling chassis it currently races, and does not incorporate in such chassis any part designed or manufactured by any other constructor of F1 racing cars except for standard items of safety equipment, providing that nothing in the Schedule 3 shall prevent the use of an engine or gearbox manufactured by a person other than the constructor of the chassis.

Much hinges on how you translate that phrase “owns the intellectual property rights”. It is used to avoid the potential loophole implicit in defining a constructor as one who builds the chassis – nothing would prevent a team “borrowing” the plans of another constructor and building an identical car in their own workshop in that case. That was pretty much what happened with the first Arrows car, that Shadow claimed (correctly, as the courts decided) was a copy of their design produced by the engineers who had left their employ to form Arrows in 1977.

But the term “intellectual property rights” remains the weak spot that might be tested by Super Aguri and Toro Rosso. TR’s Gerhard Berger is maintaining that their car will be designed in-house but the rumors of its RB3 foundation persist. No smoke without fire, they say. Super Aguri and Honda are keeping quiet, perhaps hoping that the protest will come to nothing or that TR will fight the battle and win.

At the moment, it all looks to be heading towards a court case, just as with Arrows all those years ago. None of the protagonists want it to end up there and arbitration has been mentioned as the way forward. No doubt it is, but it will be quite an achievement to get all the parties to participate, let alone agree to abide by any result.

So why all the fuss over something that is due to change in 2008 anyway, when customer cars will be allowed? Essentially, it’s about competitiveness in the coming season. Teams like Williams and Spyker had a hard time this year racing against Honda and there is no way they want to see Super Aguri leapfrog over them with a development of that chassis. And the reputation of Adrian Newey, designer of the RB3, is such that everyone fears the Red Bull of 2007; to have a TR equally as quick would be adding salt to the wound.

It’s a hard one to pick sides on. On the one hand, natural tendencies to support the underdog suggest that SA and TR be left to get on with it. But rules are rules in the end; whether we like it or not, Kolles is right.

The best answer would be for SA to look at what they have already achieved with a development of an old Arrows chassis and build on that by designing their own chassis from that experience. And Gerhard should surprise everyone by revealing an in-house TR design that beats the RB3!

Buy Red Bull gear at our F1 Store

I begin to wonder what the Toro Rosso bosses think they are playing at. To keep contracted drivers in suspense while they try out everyone else who looks as if he could hold a steering wheel has to be bad policy at the least. It was just this kind of dithering that led to Alonso leaving Renault for McLaren.

Of course, I realize that Sebastien Bourdais, the most recent to have a test with the team, is not really in the frame; he has stated repeatedly that he will drive for Newman/Haas in Champ Cars next year. But what purpose is served by letting STR’s existing drivers wait until the last moment to find out whether their contracts will be honored? If nothing else, it shows that the team does not have full confidence in their choice of drivers.

That has to have an effect on Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi. To know that their bosses are looking for someone better must erode their confidence and does nothing for relationships within the team. I can understand Spyker’s delay in filling their second seat – Tiago Monteiro did not exactly set the world alight in 2006, after all. But Toro Rosso’s indecision looks completely unnecessary.

Both Liuzzi and Speed showed great promise this season. It is hard to evaluate them without a known-quantity driver alongside but they seemed to get the best out of a car that was not expected to perform as well as it did. Since there are no obvious budding Michael Schumachers out there, the best option for the Scuderia would be to confirm their drivers and get down to preparation for next year.

I don’t think that Gerhard Berger is the problem. He has hinted often enough that there will be no surprises in the driver line-up. It seems to be Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull and Toro Rosso boss, who is being slow to make up his mind. I guess when you’re one of the richest people in the world, you don’t give a schitz how a couple of lowly F1 drivers feel.

Just as I waver in my prediction of Button for champion in 2007, the Honda team get it all together in testing at Jerez, with Barrichello fastest and test driver James Rossiter very close behind him. Clearly the team have got the measure of the Bridgestone tires and that bodes well for the coming season.

Autosport magazine has a full list of the times from the final day and they make interesting reading, even though they should be taken with the usual pinch of salt. These are not next years cars, after all, and each team is trying out different things, not necessarily competing for the quickest time.

But they are racing teams and I refuse to believe that they can ignore the times completely. Competition is in their blood.

Mark Webber and David Coulthard must be a little disappointed to be down in 12th and 14th places, even though they are still running the RB2 with Ferrari engines. How they must long for the introduction of Adrian Newey’s RB3. Scott Speed must be looking forward to the new Toro Rosso as well, especially as there are suspicions that it will be an RB3 too, albeit with a Ferrari rather than a Renault engine. And that’s if the other teams do not manage to put a halt on Toro Rosso’s plans – the protests against their using what amounts to a customer car are beginning to gather.

Lewis Hamilton was third fastest although de la Rosa wasn’t far behind him this time. The young Brit looks as convincing in testing as did Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel.

Toyota and Renault make quiet and confident progress, going fast enough yet without setting the world alight. Steady is the word that springs to mind and that is just what is needed at this stage. The Ferrari times can be ignored – they had a bad day, that’s all.

Note the speed of Anthony Davidson in the Super Aguri, however; he was only half a second slower than Barrichello. That’s not bad considering that Aguri were the bottom team of 2006. I guess it shows one of two things: either Aguri are really getting it together and could be looking at the mid-field next season, or testing times don’t matter at all!

Away from the track, the World Motor Sport Council have issued their take on the changes to come in F1 according to Max Mosley and Burkhard Goeschel. Essentially they agree completely and have added a few tweaks of their own. For instance, for the first time “standardized aerodynamics” has been mentioned. Couple this with the intent that any new technology introduced will be for sale to everyone, and you have a standardized formula. Lola are good at that – why not just get them to make all the cars for the teams?

One team that looks particularly strong going into 2007 is Red Bull Racing. The RB3 is the first of their cars designed by the legendary Adrian Newey, their additions to the design and engineering departments have made them very strong, and their drivers are tried and tested, well able to deliver the goods. Mark Webber has been talking about his hopes for the coming season and, understandably, he expects the team to be challenging for front row positions.

It all sounds very good but somehow I am not convinced. They will have a better season than in 2006, yes, but I cannot see them winning races just yet. And I find it difficult to say why I feel like that. Maybe it is my natural dislike of teams that throw money at a problem, rather than solving it through hard work and ingenuity. Easy enough to buy all the best guys and then have a strong team, as Chelsea proved in English football.

Yet it is not necessarily a guaranteed route to success. It took Chelsea a couple of seasons to achieve their goal of the Premiership championship and Manchester United always had money and the best players but did not make the breakthrough for thirty years. Does a similar principle apply in F1?

I think it does. Consider how long it took Ferrari to win another championship after Jody Scheckter’s. All their money and personnel changes could not fix their real problem, internal strife and politics, until they hired Jean Todt to get everyone on the same page.

Although Red Bull do not have quite the same problems, they still need someone to pull the team together, someone with the force of character to create a team out of all that talent. Is Christian Horner the man to do it? I’m not sure. He is very young still and has only a couple of years’ experience in F1 to date. Perhaps in another year or two…

In fact, I would really enjoy it if Red Bull were to challenge for race wins. David Coulthard is on what must be his last chance for consistent success and Mark Webber is close to giving it all up as a bad job. This really is the make or break year for them, it seems, and I hope they make it.

The nagging doubts remain, however. I can see them doing a Honda and winning one race during the season, but no more than that. Perhaps it’s just the pessimist in me. Or, even more likely, the fact that I really don’t like their color scheme…