Grapevine: Paddock Life - Melbourne edition

After extensive work over the winter, the once narrow, intimate paddock had been expanded - with the teams now enjoying their own offices and separate table areas under awnings behind the pit garages.

But unlike some other modern venues, the tinted glass used for the team buildings was not quite reflective enough - so you could clearly see what was going on inside some of the private offices.

After Super Aguri's fantastic performance on Friday, when Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato had embarrassed the works Honda Racing team, you could see the furrowed brows on some of Honda's bigwigs after they decamped down to F1's newest team offices for some post-session therapy.

A new season always brings about some new colours - and new uniforms. Of course there were new drivers in different teams - not least Kimi Raikkonen in Ferrari red, and Fernando Alonso in McLaren-Mercedes silver/Vodafone-red/orange.

But even some of the leading personnel who had not swapped camps found themselves standing out from the crowd - especially Toyota chief Tsutomu Tomita.

His team may not have undergone any radical overhaul of colours, but somehow he had turned up at the weekend with last year's specification of team uniform trousers.

According to unconfirmed reports, the only options for him were either to try and fit into the only spare trousers available (which were all women's sizes) or to just stay out from standing too close to other team members in public.

Some drivers still haven't settled on their look for the season ahead, however. Mark Webber, for one, is still trying to finalise his helmet design for 2007 - with the Australian press loving the possibility of a bit of a dust-up between himself and Red Bull over the colours he is or isn't allowed to use on his helmet.

"Since 1994 I have had the Australian flag and the sporting colours on the top," he told the Herald Sun newspaper. "I am absolutely proud to be Australian. I love representing Australia everywhere I go and that never-say-die spirit is always in me.

"We have got to incorporate a little more green on the top of my helmet in the next few races because we are still trying to get the helmet colours finally sorted."

No new Formula One season would be the same if McLaren and Mercedes-Benz did not kick it off with their annual pre-season lunch at the magnificent Stokehouse restaurant on St. Kilda beach.

The lunch is not only a chance to catch up with Ron Dennis and 'his boys' in some informal surroundings, but is also the scene of a very intense battle ground - as journalists fight it out for victory in his annual quiz.

Dennis himself is well known for his love of victory, and he would be proud of some of the antics that go on among the media as they vie for prizes and one of his team's 'Quiz Winner' trophies. This year was no exception.

With new title sponsor Vodafone on board, and offering a new 3G Internet card as top prize, the format of the event was slightly different to previous years. The questions were not just about McLaren and Mercedes - but involved football (which Vodafone sponsors), Formula Ford festivals and US presidents.

It did not take long for the fiercely competitive journalists involved to start trying to steal an advantage. Some teams were seen furiously using their Blackberry to email questions to people, or surf the web to try and find the answer.

There was even one suggestion that a national sports reporter sneaked off to the toilet to phone his sports desk to ask them the winners of obscure Champions League matches from the 1960s.

By the end of it, autosport.com's team lost by just a single point to the Spanish media table - who probably were helped by texting their friends to find out that Pedro de la Rosa's nickname is the 'Barcelona Bullet'.

Melbourne always attracts its fair share of celebrities. This year, the glittery guests were headed by Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, who drove a lap of Albert Park in a road car Ferrari along with Toro Rosso's Scott Speed.

Lee was flying into Australia for the start of the nationwide tour of his new band Supernova - and was shipped straight from Melbourne airport to Albert Park to get in a few laps.

Speed did not disappoint - tearing off around the circuit despite all attempts by the organisers to keep him at semi-sensible speeds.

"I think someone is going to come down and shout at me soon," beamed Speed afterwards, after showing Lee around the Toro Rosso pits.

But that wasn't the only rock & roll appearance of the weekend. Kylie Minogue visited the grid with sister Dannii on Sunday, while Red Bull got poodle-haired rocksters Wolfmother to play at their pre-season party in the docklands.