British GP Saturday Night Fever

Every team has weather forecasting arrangements of varying degrees of sophistication, usually involving contracts with specialist organisations. Usually they are incredibly accurate. As Northants clouded over on Saturday lunchtime the lines from the teams to these guys were buzzing, and the general consensus was that rain was on the way. Indeed they didn't need far flung forecasters to tell them, because contacts who were just 10 or 20 miles away were reporting that it was already soggy - there were even reports of hail stones in Bicester!

The effect of all this was that most people decided that they didn't want to running at around 2.30-2.40pm, the likely end of the critical session, because it seemed sure to be wet. On the other hand a lap near the top of the hour was likely to be safe.

The Ferrari guys were first out, and they treated us to a real show. In an attempt to hide their true intentions from the opposition Michael contrived to spin, while Rubens ran wide at Vale. It was a little naïve of the team to think that other teams had not had come to the same conclusions about sandbagging, but others were less subtle, simply slowing at the end of their laps to let the time tick away.

The one top driver who remained aloof of all this was Jenson Button, who set the quickest time and guaranteed himself last spot. Since David Richards had his helicopter aloft, did the team have better weather info than those who relied on science? Who knows...

In the end Jenson had the last laugh, more or less. The rain never came, although there were horrendous looking clouds either side of the circuit and blue sky right above. Even when the nasty stuff moved over the track, it didn't dump its rain. Despite having the best slot Jenson couldn't quite take advantage and had to settle for third, behind Kimi Raikkonen and Barrichello, but crucially, ahead of Schumacher.

"There was a high probability of rain, and we didn't want to run at the end of the session," said Brawn. "The session probably got a little bit quicker as it went on, but if it had rained at the end, we would have been in trouble. The rain that was forecast yesterday didn't come and the rain that was forecast today didn't come. You could see it, it was in the vicinity, it just didn't hit the track.

"Strategically we didn't want to go fast, and the drivers chose their ways of not going fast. We didn't want to alert the opposition. Some of them followed us, and some of them didn't."

There were glum faces in the Ferrari camp, so the implication surely is that the cars are running light and were 'supposed' to be on the front row. Having Kimi and Jenson in the way, with that fast starting Renault of Jarno Trulli right behind, is bad news.

This hasn't been a smooth weekend for Ferrari. The team expected rain on Friday afternoon, so did most of it usual homework in the morning, when the track was still a little green. As one inside put it, they "ran out of ideas and tyres" for the afternoon. Michael had a couple of (genuine) spins on Saturday morning, which wasn't ideal either.

Ross Brawn is trying to put a brave face on it: "It is difficult to divulge our strategy. You'll see it evolve as the race goes on! But I think we have a pretty good strategy. I think considering our qualifying position if we can stay in that lead group then the race should develop OK. We've got to try to use the properties of the tyre. They get stronger as each session of the race goes on.

"At Magny-Cours we managed to do something to give ourselves some free space. But it depends what the traffic is doing around us. The quality of our tyre is its consistency. It's perhaps not as strong with one lap qualifying, but we can do great things with the positions we have.

"The cars are set up for the dry because we simply don't know if it's going to rain tomorrow. We can't change the cars overnight, so we have to live with the set-up we have if it rains. Everybody's in the same situation, so it will be very exciting.

"Kimi looks very strong. Jenson has had some good races, and of course we've got Trulli right behind us. He's going to be a threat. I think the McLaren is unproven in terms of race performance so far. We need to see what that brings. If Jenson gets in front or holds our guys up that could make the race far more difficult."

Adrian Newey was all smiles. It could well be that Kimi is among the first to stop, but whatever the case, that pole is the first step on the road back for driver and team.

"He arrived happy with the car," said Adrian, "which always makes it easy, because then you can fine tune the balance rather than having to make wholesale changes. We've fine-tuned it a little bit through the weekend, and he's repaid us. It's the usual thing, the race is a different matter. I'm sure Ferrari will be very strong in the race. I imagine their first session was pure gamesmanship."

So what about strategy? Last year the two safety cars - for DC's lost bodywork and that track invading nutter's deluded antics - turned the whole thing upside down. The winning strategy was two stops, and indeed the first five all did two, with the first after 12 for that safety car, and the second in the 35-40 range.

"There is the capacity for overtaking here," says Brawn. "And I think during the race I think you'll see people adopting different fuel loads."

Logic suggests that two will be popular again, but recent races suggest that three, with an early first stop, could suit some better. The uncertainty over the weather could make the whole exercise academic anyway...