News round-up: Willis starts at BAR...

Willis's first job will be to familiarise himself with the BAR 004 chassis, so he will not journey to either the Malaysian or Brazilian grands prix.

BAR have also revealed that the reason for the rear wing of Jacques Villeneuve's car coming off in Melbourne was fatigue. A design modification has now been made to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Sauber's technical director Willy Rampf has estimated that the accident which eliminated both his cars at Melbourne cost about 600,000 euros (370,000 pounds). Rampf returned to their Swiss base to supervise the production of the new wings, radiators and suspension parts required.

Ralf Schumacher will use the same Williams FW24 chassis in Malaysia as he crashed in the opening round at Melbourne. Two of the car's impact structures had to be replaced, in addition to a damaged diffusor and a scored undertray.

Toyota's new test driver Stephane Sarrazin had his first run for the team at Paul Ricard this week, as race drivers Allan McNish and Mika Salo are holidaying in Malaysia.