Ferrari grab the best times at the second session of testing at Barcelona and suddenly everyone thinks they are the team to beat again. It’s like Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame – first McLaren, then BMW and now Ferrari. Any bets on which team will be favorite next?

What it really means is that there is very little to choose between a lot of the teams. Alonso reckons there are five in with a chance of winning GPs: Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW and, although still a little behind the best, Honda. To that list I would add Williams and Toyota. Red Bull has been disappointing to date and we can only presume that Toro Rosso will be more of the same since they will be running a very similar car. And Super Aguri and Spyker have their sights set a little lower than race wins this year at least.

That leaves a lot of teams in the running but of one thing we can be sure – the numbers will thin out once racing starts in earnest. Some of those who show well now will fade in the heat of competition and unexpected weaknesses will appear. The problem is in working out which of the contenders will maintain the challenge throughout the season.

The big three have an advantage in this through experience; we expect them to do well because they always do. Sooner or later the old order must change, however, and the chances of it happening this season are very high. BMW are looking like the team that could upset the apple cart. The car has been consistently good at all the circuits so far and the drivers and team members seem focused and quietly efficient. Their moment may have arrived rather earlier than Mario Theissen expected but, if they can build on early successes, they could be in with a chance of a championship.

We have seen a lot of change over this off season and big changes usually bring about re-shuffling of established orders. In 1979, the year ground effect spread to everyone, Lotus failed to capitalize on Chapman’s invention and were nowhere, while Williams emerged as top rank contenders for the first time. The fact that Ferrari managed to squeeze out a last gasp championship that year might be a good omen for them in 2007 but I doubt it. This time around, they are the team that has had more change than any other.

1979 was also the year that Ligier won the first two races with their JS11 and looked the team to beat, only to fade away as the season wore on. Could BMW be the Ligier of 2007?

The big news today is that Lewis Hamilton grabbed the quickest time on the final day of the Valencia test sessions. This bodes well for the young driver’s future, showing that he has no problem getting back into the car after a big shunt. No doubt McLaren are heartened too to see the MP4-22 performing so well already.

We all know it’s meaningless, of course; off season testing is always an unreliable indicator of likely results in the races that follow. So why do we follow it so closely, poring over lap times and making guesses as to which teams will be the stars of the coming season?

It’s addiction, you know – so starved are we of action in the sport that we’ll read anything to get us through the lean period. These few months when nothing is happening but hype and hope are the real test of the F1 fan’s stamina. To outsiders it might seem that we should take a break and go off to watch football until the season opener (Melbourne, Australia, March 18, by the way) but they really don’t understand what drives us. We’re addicted and must have something to feed our habit.

So we read every scrap of info that comes our way, ponder arcane details of design in the new cars, compare testing times, listen to what even the lowliest F1 mechanic has to say. Without even noticing, we feed the habit, even stooping as low as to pick up stogies dropped by Bernie Ecclestone as he wanders the world, adding GPs here and cutting a few there.

It has to be said that there are benefits to this obsession too. Unlike the part-time F1 fan, we do not have to spend the entire Australian GP wondering who the heck that guy is in the Bloopmobile Special this year – not only do we know, we could tell you his age, his career history and what he had for breakfast this morning. To my shame, I have to admit to missing the occasional off season in the past and being very confused in the first few races as a result.

How fitting it is that F1 has been the last refuge of the tobacco advertisers for so long. Like nicotine addicts condemned to wear the patch for three months, we hang on grimly until we can once again light up the television for that first, so-satisfying hit of the year. Life is merely an annoying interlude between races.

As with the dwindling band of committed smokers, we are determined to hold on to our habit, too. To tell an F1 fan that “hey, there’s hockey on the TV” is like offering gum to a smoker – it just doesn’t cut it and he returns to reading the obscure article about Barrichello’s new helmet design that he found on the back page of the local rag this morning.

But hey, I don’t mind admitting it: my name is Clive and I’m an F1 fan. Try to convert me if you will, I won’t change. Fact is, I love this sport…

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?

The teams have finished testing at Monza and everyone now looks forward to the race next weekend. Although times from test runs are always misleading, there are a few inferences that we can gather from the latest batch.

Predictably, Ferrari set the quickest time although, for a change, it was Felipe Massa who was fastest this time and Michael Schumacher was third. We shouldn’t set too much store by this but it does at least show that Massa is continuing his run of form.

Second up was Alonso, allowing some hope that the Renaults might be close enough to the Ferraris to give them a run for their money in the race. This is Monza, however, and Ferrari have traditionally done well there, no doubt given extra impetus by the combined wishes of the thousands of tifosi watching the race. I will be very surprised if the Italian team do not win their home Grand Prix.

Robert Kubica is settling in well as a race driver for BMW Sauber, setting fastest lap on the first test day and then crashing the car on the second. The man is a star in the making.

Williams gave themselves some hope by being well up the time sheets in fourth and seventh, while Klien continued his late renaissance to end up fifth. Surely this must make Red Bull wonder whether they made the right decision in taking him out of the team for 2007.

One should not read too much into the times, as I said, but they do help pass the days until the race arrives. And what a race it is; Monza is one of the old circuits and is still capable of showing F1 at its best. Those long straights allow the cars to reach prodigious speeds, there are some very fast and demanding bends, the occasional chicane inserted in modern times, and then there is the Parabolica to slingshot the cars back into the start/finish straight. Definitely one of the races not to be missed.