Many of the teams have been testing at the Barcelona circuit, with Felipe Massa predictably fastest in the Ferrari and the other drivers getting used to the Bridgestone tires. Although the times are meaningless at this early stage, they are listed in an article in Autosport magazine if you’re interested.

Autosport also has a very revealing interview after the first day’s runs with Super Aguri’s new driver, Anthony Davidson. He confirms that the Bridgestones are very different from the Michelins he was used to and that it will take time to adjust the car to get the best from them. Apparently the tires slide more and, although he found this quite entertaining, it is difficult to post good times as a result.

Which would seem to confirm all the talk of last year’s Bridgestone customers having an early season advantage until we remember that these are not the 2006 tires but an older compound that all the teams are going to have to get used to. By the time the season kicks off in Australia next year, I think that everyone will know pretty well what to expect from their tires; it will, in fact, be the proverbial level playing field that was impossible as long as two tire manufacturers were involved in F1.

In spite of Davidson’s troubles with the tires at the test, he was still respectable in the Super Aguri, posting 11th fastest time, ahead of the Toro Rossos and Red Bulls. The news on Aguri is that they will be racing a development of this year’s Honda chassis, the RA106, and will slip through the loophole in the regulations identified by Red Bull with the Toro Rosso car of 2006. As long as components are manufactured by a third party, it seems, it does not matter who assembles them and Aguri has made sure that their car for next year will qualify accordingly.

Clearly the regulations are not stringent enough to ensure that each team builds its own car from scratch and it is probably impossible to achieve this anyway. All teams use parts designed and built by other companies. We now have two teams effectively running second squads under thin disguises, Red Bull with Toro Rosso and Honda with Super Aguri. Why they should want to spread their effort so thinly, I have no idea, but they have made me doubt the wisdom of the regulation in the first place.

Presumably the intent of the rule is to prevent places in F1 being collared by existing competitors when there are other teams waiting for a gap to open up so that they can become involved. This has not happened so why bother with regulating it at all? Running two teams will soon prove too expensive and wasteful for most companies (I doubt that Red Bull and Honda will keep it going for long) and the gaps will appear in the long run.

In the fifties there were no restrictions on how many cars a team could enter and it was quite common for there to be three or four cars run by a single entrant. At the time, there was no pressure on the numbers of cars racing and the arrangement worked well enough, even though it gave larger teams a greater chance of having a car finish the race. But nothing has changed in that respect; the larger teams still enjoy certain benefits over the smaller ones, not the least of which is money.

It all makes me think that there needs to be less regulation in F1, not more. At the moment the rules are so complicated that lawyers are sometimes needed to decide on finer points that arise. That can hardly be good for the sport.

One thing that never varies between seasons is the optimistic outlook of every team in F1. Looking at the possibilities and listening to the reported statements, it is easy to think that everyone is going to do well next year.

Yet we know life isn’t like that; always there are losers as well as winners. Some amongst the teams will find their hopes dashed and have to transfer their optimism to 2008. And part of the game in the off season is in guessing who will fail to achieve their objectives.

The big disappointment this year was the Honda team – everyone expected them to be pushing for race wins but they came good only at the end of the year. Red Bull, too, had a poor season and are now admitting that they gave up on the RB2 from its first race, deciding that it was a lost cause and they would be better employed preparing for 2007. David Coulthard had an even tougher year than we knew about, it seems. But, having put so much work into Adrian Newey’s RB3, Red Bull are expecting great things in the coming season. We shall see.

Anthony Davidson has been talking about his reaction to being taken on as a race driver by Super Aguri and his optimism is a little more guarded than others, understandably so. To aim for points and to be pushing Takuma Sato hard by the end of the year are both realistic ambitions. There are always a few chaotic races in the year when small teams can gather a point or two. But I hope he does better than “push Taku hard”!

Over at Toro Rosso, Gerhard Berger has said that their driver line-up will be unchanged for 2007, although no official announcement has been made as yet. Which is good news for Scott Speed, in view of all the rumors that Robert Doornbos was being considered as a replacement for him. The American has been talking of his hopes for the season, perhaps more confident now that his place seems assured, and he, too, expects to score points for the team.

So who is going to lose out after all this talk? It would be easy to pick the losers from previous seasons but, ever a supporter of underdogs, I hope they all do as well as they expect to. The one I would really like to see fall flat on its face is Ferrari – which is not exactly likely, I know. But when Luca di Montezemolo “promises” the fans the 2007 championships, my natural reaction is to wish fervently for him to have to eat his words.

Optimism is one thing, a promise another thing entirely.

I like Gerhard Berger’s style. He was a great racer in his driving days, perhaps one of the few whose ego could survive being teammate to Ayrton Senna, even beating the great man on rare occasions. The stories of practical jokes played on each other are the perfect illustration of the mutual respect between them.

So it is good to see Gerhard running the Toro Rosso team in the same way – cheerfully independent and determined to succeed. The struggle with parent team, Red Bull, over Vitantonio Liuzzi’s services (which Toro Rosso won) shows that Gerhard is quite prepared to fight Toro Rosso’s corner against the guys who supply the money. I can imagine, too, the smile on Gerhard’s face at those races in 2006 where his cars embarrased Red Bull’s by being quicker.

It is no surprise, therefore, to read of Gerhard’s insistence that Toro Rosso will design and build their own car for next season. There may have been suspicions that they would run the same chassis as Red Bull in 2007 (and some teams were getting ready to protest this) but that is not Gerhard’s style. I know what he’d like to do – beat Red Bull. It stands to reason that the man who spent most of his driving career trying to beat the best should continue that habit as a manager.

He might well have the tools to do it, too. If his team can produce an effective chassis, they are in with a chance, even though Red Bull’s engineering team is now very strong with the addition of Adrian Newey and others. Minardi demonstrated on several occasions that it is possible to design a good car on a shoestring budget – their problem was always that they never had as powerful an engine as other teams. Toro Rosso could get it right in the same way.

There is nothing wrong with their power plant as well. The Ferrari engine is at least as powerful and reliable as the Renault – the trick is in mating it effectively to the chassis so as to make best use of its characteristics. Admittedly, no-one has managed to do this as well as the Ferrari team so far but it has to happen sooner or later, even if by accident.

Then there is the matter of drivers – and here it’s youth against experience. Red Bull have two proven warriors in Webber and Coulthard, both of them capable of winning races and with enormous depth of experience. Toro Rosso’s Liuzzi and Speed are young, enthusiastic and have a learning year behind them. All other things being equal, you would expect the veterans to beat the newbies – but things are never equal. If the Toro Rosso is good, the drivers could do the job.

Next season is shaping up to be one of the most interesting for years. And the struggle between Red Bull and Toro Rosso could be one of the talking points. Red Bull insist that Toro Rosso is a part of their empire but independent of their control – if Gerhard’s boys start beating their sister team regularly, Red Bull might just have to grin and bear it.

The qualifying sessions for the Chinese Grand Prix have confirmed what we already knew: Michelin’s wet tire has an advantage over Bridgestone’s. With the track very wet from the start and then drying slowly and in patches, the Bridgestone runners were in trouble. Of them all, only Michael Schumacher managed to squeeze into Q3.

He then put the Ferrari into sixth spot on the grid, almost a superhuman feat, given the disadvantage of the tires. Whatever we think of him as a man, there is no doubting his driving skills.

It was Michelin’s day, however, and they made the best of it. The Renaults were the class of the field, easily grabbing the front row, Alonso on pole. Perhaps surprisingly, the Hondas were next up with Barrichello third and Button fourth. Their times were identical but the Brazilian set his before Jenson and so goes ahead.

Then came the McLarens, sandwiching Michael. Raikkonen did very little running until Q3, perhaps confident that he could get the time when he needed it. And, although Pedro de la Rosa spun his McLaren into some elegant manouvers off-track, he will be sufficiently close to his teammate to support him in the race.

The BMW Saubers were next up, Heidfeld ahead of Kubica, and tenth spot was claimed by Robert Doornbos – an excellent effort for his first race for Red Bull.

Now thoughts turn to the race, of course, and that means the weather. The meteorologists seem a little confused and some are predicting dry conditions, others opt for rain. All we can say for sure is that, if it rains, the Renaults will win. If it turns out dry, they will still be in with a very good chance but Michael and Kimi are not likely to make it easy for them.

Highlight of qualifying? That has to be Scott Speed in his Toro Rosso – for a few minutes it looked as though he would make it into Q3. And his time in Q2 would have put him in seventh spot, had he been able to repeat it. As it is, he starts from eleventh – not a bad effort at all.