Toro Rosso is a team with a lot going for it. For a start, it is all that remains of the Minardi saga, in spite of its rather silly name. And it is run by one of F1′s most mischievous characters, Gerhard Berger. Add to that the fact that it is the only team to have an American driver in its line-up and I have to keep an eye on it.

Anyone with a smattering of a Latin language knows that Toro Rosso is Italian for Red Bull; it’s a pity that the company boss, Dietrich Mateschitz, felt it was so important to rename the team for the corporation even though there was so much goodwill attached to the Minardi name. As a result, the team has to build a completely new image of its own without the lingering aura that surrounded Minardi.

But it is happening. Thanks largely to Berger’s love of fun, Toro Rosso begins to emerge as the “bad boy” in the paddock, the team that bucks authority and goes its own way. The irreverent nature of its press releases may be a bit cheesy but at least they’re different from the usual bland, careful statements.

It remains hard to see the team as separate from the Red Bull giant, however, and their use of an obvious copy of the parent company’s RB3 chassis confirms that impression. Although they lag behind Red Bull in development of the car, it is quite likely that they will benefit from the gains made in that camp and will become ever more competitive as the season progresses. The alternative would be to develop independently and find their own tweaks to what is beginning to look a very sound design. That is their best hope of catching and overtaking the parent company, although it also carries the risk of failure and a season spent at the back of the grid with Spyker and Super Aguri.

It remains to be seen which route they will choose. And we also await a verdict on the abilities of the Toro Rosso drivers. Last season was inconclusive, with Liuzzi doing better than Speed in the early season but generally overshadowed by him later on. And so far this year that has continued, with first one then the other getting the upper hand. It is very hard to rate them without a driver of known quality to compare them with.

For some reason that I do not understand, Liuzzi is highly regarded in F1 circles – perhaps because of his performances in the lower formulae. Yet, if we look at the cold statistics, Speed has performed at least as well as Vitantonio and should be accorded the same respect. I suspect that the reason he is not rated is a matter of personality, rather than talent. Scott’s pre-F1 record is impressive too but his character is seemingly laid back, informal and altogether too “nice”.

One would think that Berger, of all people, would understand that an irreverent attitude is no bar to driving talent, seeing that he was renowned for practical jokes when paired with Ayrton Senna, but apparently our Austrian hero wants others to be more serious than himself. There is a vast ambition in Berger that shows itself in his goals for Toro Rosso and I think it is this that led him to string Speed along during the off season – he wants to see the same drive in the American.

I would suggest that Scott Speed has already demonstrated a hidden and understated drive that is exactly what Berger is looking for. This is the same man who raced while suffering from a debilitating disease and conquered it. The light-hearted, nice guy persona is cover, that’s all.

All this will be irrelevant if Toro Rosso cannot develop their equipment, however. They lack the depth of experience that other teams have and so must work that much harder to bring their car to its full potential. Many doubt that they can do it but I think the spirit of Minardi hovers over the team and will ensure that they get down to business and produce the goods in the end.

Yeah, it’s true, I like ‘em and forgive their weaknesses as a result. But at least they have some character…

Having seen how close Red Bull are to making the breakthrough to the front with their RB3, it must be said that there is another team that could do the same, if they can overcome their reliability problems. That is Williams, of course.

In contrast to the Red Bull car, the FW29 has looked good from the moment it turned a wheel and, more often than not, it has made better use of the Toyota engine than the factory team where lap times are concerned. But the Toyotas are finishing the races whereas the Williams tend not to.

This is Williams we are talking about, however; a team with more history and experience in F1 than most. It is a safe bet that they will have improved reliability by the next GP. Much depends on how quickly they can wring more performance from the tires and the chassis therefore.

Everyone will be using the four-week gap to Barcelona as an opportunity to sort out the cars and make them quicker. Those who can wring that little bit extra from their machine will be the teams that move forward – and Williams ought to be amongst those, building on their knowledge and understanding of racing. In fact, all else being equal, one would expect them to emerge from the chasing group before Red Bull do so.

At that point, everything will hinge upon the driver pairing of Rosberg and Wurz. It’s a strange line-up in some ways, the promising youngster allied with the solid but unpredictable returning veteran, but it is looking good so far. Nico Rosberg is obviously quick and has the same level head that we admire so much in Lewis Hamilton; Alex has lost none of his ambition, as demonstrated in his drive from the back in Bahrain. Both have a lot to prove but are unlikely to make too many mistakes along the way.

So things look good for Williams at the moment and I cannot explain the nagging doubt that lingers in my mind. I want the team to return to competitiveness but something prevents me from predicting podiums for them this season. They will score points, yes, and I confidently expect them to finish the year ahead of Toyota; but to get to the level of Ferrari and McLaren or even BMW? I just can’t see it.

In writing these articles on each team thus far, I have been struck by how close a season it is. There are such tiny differences in the performance of so many teams that it is hard to see just who will move forward and who will fall behind. It will only take a suddenly-discovered tweak in one of the chasing teams for them to leap into contention – and that could easily happen.

For Button’s sake, I have to hope that it’s Honda that makes the jump; but far more likely is that it will be Williams.

Toyota’s F1 team strike me as being the antithesis of Minardi in its heyday; whereas little Minardi oozed passion in abundance (and, at times, it was all they had), Toyota seem a passionless bunch, not quite sure of what they are supposed to be doing in F1. They have everything that Minardi never had – money, top designers, experienced team members, highly-rated drivers – yet they consistently under-achieve. I must conclude that they will never become a competitive team until they find passion somewhere, somehow.

Take Ralf Schumacher’s latest comments to the press, for instance. There seems no annoyance at the criticism leveled at his lackluster performances this year, merely a tired assurance that, when the car comes good, so will he. It does not even seem to occur to him that it’s the same old story we have heard repeated so often before.

Can you imagine Webber or Alonso in the same situation? They would not be holding back any caustic comments or accepting the status quo. Passion forces the unguarded statement from a man, ensures that occasionally he will stick his foot in his mouth.

Ralf’s statements are as bland and vague as if he had already proved his worth as the most highly-paid driver in F1; the reality is that we are still unconvinced of his talent. And the fact that Jarno Trulli is getting the best from the car while Ralf manages to fumble every race must raise questions in anyone’s mind. But not Ralf’s, apparently.

I detect rather more dissatisfaction in Jarno but he is too nice a guy to let much of it show. He is also perhaps more realistic than Ralf in assessing his own value in the F1 market – he knows that, if he fails to make a go of it at Toyota, the job offers will be thin on the ground thereafter. So he soldiers on, doing his best, and hoping that the team will eventually get it right.

Looking at the rest of the team, it is hard to say where this passionless attitude comes from. Pascal Vasselon, the senior chassis manager, is one of the most sensible people in F1 and is always worth listening to. Perhaps if he were more extreme, less realistic, we might see the flashes of emotion that mark the truly exceptional characters we have known in the sport.

And the car itself is a model of careful development, building upon what has gone before. What a pity that F1 is the one arena where that is not sufficient, where it is bold experimentation that can offer a chance of success, just as it also risks an embarrassing failure (just ask Honda).

It may well be that Toyota have found their level: always in with a chance of points but never a front runner. As the saga proceeds this season, it becomes ever more apparent that Toyota’s best chance remains to give up on the corporate team and put all their efforts into a small outfit that has the necessary ingredient of passion.

And that means Williams, of course…

It seems to me that the knives are out at Ferrari already. After the Bahrain GP, technical director Mario Almondo was critical of Raikkonen’s race, suggesting that he work on starts and restarts; now Kimi has voiced doubts over the preparation of his car for qualifying.

Back in October of last year, I wrote of the difficulties Kimi would experience in fitting into the Ferrari team; since then I have seen nothing to change my mind. Even before he joined, Ferrari were talking about getting their new driver to smile more often and to moderate his private life. As I pointed out at the time, this amounted to implied criticism of a guy who has nothing to prove in F1 – we all know he is one the three fastest drivers around.

And now Almondo finds reason to pick at Raikkonen’s performance in Bahrain and Kimi, stung at last to put his side of the story (very tactfully – he said “we” most of the time), hints that he may not be getting the same treatment as Massa in qualifying. It hardly speaks of a team that is together in their determination for the Finn to succeed this year.

The most telling point is that these guarded exchanges are being conducted in public. Ferrari have been quite open in their criticism of Raikkonen from the very start, while their enthusiasm for Massa has been evident, Todt springing to the Brazilian’s defense after his ham-fisted attempts to pass Hamilton in Malaysia. Kimi has held his tongue until this latest statement but the tension on his face has been plain to see – he knows he’s getting a raw deal.

I have no doubt that Kimi will struggle on through the season, working with what he is given and trying to show the team who they should be putting their major effort into. My point is really that he shouldn’t have to – Ferrari only handicap themselves by favoring one driver over another, particularly when the favorite is the slower of the two.

But that is Ferrari; they have their likes and dislikes and woe betide you if you turn up on the dislike side of the equation.

The photograph up there illustrates the difference between Ferrari and McLaren. Ron Dennis has his detractors but he is the best man manager of the lot (now that Eddie Jordan and Ken Tyrrell are no longer around). He believed in Kimi from the start and never stopped doing so, even if he wished that the Finn wouldn’t party so heartily.

Ferrari assured us that we would see Kimi smile this year – pardon me for pointing this out but it ain’t happened yet. And that looks like a huge grin on the Finn’s face in that photo above.