Welcome to Spain and to Catalunya, which was described eloquently James Allen as being "like Milton Keynes with dust", something I'm sure Barcelona is not too happy about but what about Milton Keynes…the circuit is slap bang in the middle of an industrial area and not one concrete cow to be seen, think how aggrieved they must feel!!

There was bad news for the Jordan team this week when nearly fifty people were sacked to cut costs and even worse news for team boss, Eddie Jordan, as it was hotly rumoured that he would have to start doing some work around the place again…Heaven forbid!!

There was an interesting little fact though (yeah, I know I don't usually deal in facts but bear with me)…did you know that McLaren have employed almost as many people as EJ sacked just to run their brand new motorhome!? All that money and they're still doing crap…DC's blaming the tyres… although Williams (and Kimi come to that) seem to manage just fine, while Ron Dennis is criticising the Mercedes engine…philosophically resigning to the comment "we all have our ups and downs in life"…well as far as both Championships are concerned Ron, I have to say it looks all down hill from here.

Now in this poverty stricken world of Formula One…the pinnacle of motorsport…we see the introduction of yet another new gadget. Now while the engineers in the pitlane would wince at me for calling 'two-way telemetry' a gadget…let me explain. There are over 500 sensors on one Jaguar alone (I bet they're not cheap)…they allow information to be fed back to the pitlane regarding oil pressures, water pressures, oil temperature, water temperature, hydraulic pressure, lines, speeds, revs, when Eddie needs to pee…you name it, it tells you about it in pitlane…until now!! Now it allows you to tell it to shut up moaning and do something about the problem.

In my cynical view this leaves the door wide open for Ross Brawn to accidentally on purpose cut off fuel to Barrichello if he dares to show how good he really can drive!! In the last two qualifying sessions Rubens has been on pole until the final seconds of the session, until Michael came out of nowhere, and despite being in the 'reliable' F2001 in Brazil…it broke down…now what does that tell you!?

Irvine was asked to consider the likelihood of remote control drivers in the future and gave his usual well considered answer of "let's hope not"…well I say why the hell not, just think…it would be like getting to play a life size scalectrix…Wow, think of the fun you could have with that…"No Michael, today you get to play with the black handset, Mark's not had a go with the red one yet"…I think at this stage in your career, Eddie, you should maybe give the idea a little more thought!! Let's face it the racing couldn't get much duller and it'd save money too…maybe I should go and have a quiet word in Bernie's shell-like!?

McLaren (for one) have gone one further and got telemetry to help them avoid traffic on the circuit for qualifying and race strategy…it's a shame for them that Arrows (not quite having the budget of RD) could only manage to afford one that allows Bernoldi to find DC, rumours are that there is a new invisible shield going to be added to the young Brazilian's rear wing, to stop him from passing him…personally speaking I think that could be categorised as misplacement of funds.

Talking of a waste of money, Minardi have shelled out on a new front wing design that they have now withdrawn due to its inability to stay attached to the car, a feature that obviously wasn't discussed over the drawing board and just got missed somehow…you know how it is…

Forget cutting costs to make this sport more competitive, there's only one way to save us all some time…sack Michael Schumacher and you get instant competition and probably half the entire fields annual wage budget!!

Talking of all things bright and Schumacher, Rubens thinks he's giving him a harder time this year and that Michael is enjoying the new competition as once again he was nearly beaten to the pole again by his team-mate…yeah right, does anyone else out there think that this guy's just playing with us…just having a laugh - imagine the conversation:

Brawn: "Get out there Michael and show him how it's done!"
Schui: "Aw but look he's smiling…I'll do it next time I've got one more set of laps left."

Ten minutes later…

Brawn: "Now Michael, get out there and take that pole!"
Schui: "Aw can't we just let him have this one, his eyes are sparkling an everyfink?"
Unison: "Nah…"

One thing did annoy me today though was that throughout the session, despite Barrichello being on Pole until the final three or four minutes of qualifying, every single time that was set was compared to Schumacher's except his own of course. What does the guy have to do to even get a mention…

So it's a Ferrari one-two just for a change with Williams slightly more surprisingly on the second row, having sandbagged all other sessions leading up to this making us all think they were terrible…including probably Frank to be frank.

Kimi out-qualified DC…hang on a minute I'll just go and look it up…yes for the third time this season, me thinks he's going to have to look further than his tyres for that statistic!! Jenson Button, the guy that everyone loves this year and hated last year, split the McLarens in sixth place.

Tomorrow my eye will be on the young Brit to get a storming start as Renault's launch control puts on a show…what will happen after that depends very much on how their engine and suspension hold out…or how long it is until Montoya punts him off track…whichever comes first (my money's on Monty).

Needless to say that Michael is "quietly optimistic" about the result here this weekend…that's like saying that I "quite" like Hagen Daas Pralines and Cream…I'll await the royalty payouts for that little gem!!

What's going to happen tomorrow…well Michael will lead, Michael will win…sorry…I didn't mean to spoil it for you…but if you didn't know this already (or at least suspect it) maybe you should start watching chess…it's probably about as much excitement as you should be getting right now.

See you there…

Reproduced with permission from PenelopeF1.com

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