MPH: Mark Hughes on...

It was an interesting way of hearing the views of the key figures in the Williams team - each would take their seat with us for one of four small courses of brunch, then be whisked off to another table for the next, to be replaced by someone else.

Sir Frank arrived at the table and, asked of his opinions on the forthcoming season, replied: "It's looking like a rerun of last year, isn't it?" Which was not to say that the team isn't giving its all in trying to improve, but that the realistic picture - as can be seen from the pre- season test 'grid' at the front of this week's issue - shows Ferrari/McLaren out front fighting only each other, well clear of the same tight upper midfield group as last year.

But however similar the competitive hierarchy turns out to be, the hope is that the off-track politics don't spill over into the championship the way they did in '07. The ramifications of the espionage case are still very much in Frank's thoughts. "One hundred million dollars!" he says. "That has got to hurt [McLaren]. I think it was calculated very carefully so as to badly hurt but not quite cripple them."

Someone then asked if he thought the penalty was justified, and he tellingly said he was frightened to answer that question. "Max [Mosley] has cast himself as the avenger and now stands victorious with his sword bloodied. And we, the teams, are all cowed."

Frank did then allow that he was grateful for the work the FIA had done in controlling costs, and for freezing a very equal engine performance from the manufacturers. "That stuff from the old days, where you lined up for your Cosworth then spent the season wondering if so and so had been given a better engine than you, is now thankfully gone."

Sam Michael, the team's technical director, gave some insight into the reasons why the competitive picture is looking so much like last year. "We've definitely closed up on [the Ferrari/McLaren] performance advantage, but it's looking like all the others in the group have too. But really, where is the surprise in that? We now have an F1 with control tyres and frozen-spec engines, and where the technical regulations have been fairly stable for a few seasons. Any team that starts with a good concept will simply refine, it and those that begin behind tend to stay there."

Next season wipes the slate clean: a completely new aerodynamic package, slick tyres and KERS (energy- recovery) devices. "It's like asking us to do a NASCAR car," says Michael. "That's how different it is.

"So you're seeing in '08 just refinements of what was there already - and whilst we're putting maximum effort into getting to the front, realistically all we're doing is making that gap to the front smaller. We've done that by the look of it, but so has everyone else. So we're still in that same group, even though that group as a whole looks closer to Ferrari/ McLaren than it was. Realistically we've got to be targeting third in the constructors - but so are a lot of others.

"For '09 everything starts from scratch and I think we have a very realistic chance of getting to the front then. There will be a lot more variation to start with, as everyone will have different concepts, and over time it will become clear which of those concepts are fruitful paths to follow and which aren't. And then gradually you'll see the convergence pattern again.

"We're confident we're on the right path now with our aero, our simulation. Everything we do correlates with what we expect now - which wasn't the case in '05 and '06. It tells you that you're on the right track and all you need to do now is more of it. We're looking at concepts for '09. We've done wind-tunnel work on models, done a lot of CFD work. The power of CFD is really high in this situation, when you're looking to new overall concepts."

Then it was Patrick Head's turn. He talked about how he could see the sense of the forthcoming KERS devices. "If having hybrid systems in F1 helps makes them sexy for buyers of road cars, then that's helping. I don't think F1 can expect not to come under pressure from the environmental movement if it celebrates excess in a Jeremy Clarkson sort of manner. But technically I doubt whether the systems would actually contribute to the technology of the road cars.

"Toyota will tell you that the systems in their Lexus models make what we'll be using look very basic. But that is necessary, because in road cars you have systems that take control from the driver if the car decides he's not making the correct inputs, and these are incorporated into the software, whereas we're trying to keep that sort of thing out of F1. I think the FIA are doing the right thing, even if I do object to the way they go about it sometimes."

Such as budget caps? "We are very much in favour of budget caps, because the figures that are being proposed as a cap are well in excess of what we spend. Therefore, bringing the big spenders closer to us very much meets with our approval. But how you'd go about policing it is a very different matter."

Nico Rosberg had arrived at much the same conclusion as Frank and Sam about the team's competitiveness in the coming season: "The car feels really good, has done right from the start, a big improvement over the FW29. But then you look at the times of the front guys. It's going to be a big fight between us, BMW, Renault, Red Bull and maybe Toyota too." It was suggested that maybe he was being pessimistic, and he allowed that was entirely possible.

"My dad [ex-world champion Keke Rosberg] is a very pessimistic person," he smiled, "and he wants to share that with you all the time! It's been like that all the way through my career. I think I share his outlook generally - but I'm happier to keep that outlook to myself. I don't feel the need to unburden it on everyone else!

"But he's been great, really. He stays in the background - and has done right from the time of my first test with Williams. It was quite funny because Nelson [Piquet] was doing the same test and his dad was there fussing over him all the time, massaging his neck after his 10-lap run, in big discussion with him the whole time, whereas my dad was away in the stands somewhere.

"I have to say I much preferred my dad's approach. Afterwards he was really happy that I'd gone faster than Nelson, but I said, 'Dad, you're not seeing the correct picture. It wasn't about me being quicker than Nelson - it was about how I compared to the Williams race drivers, Ralf and Juan Pablo'. And I wasn't close enough to them to get the test-driver role - which was my aim. That's how I was thinking of the test and I was disappointed." A realist, just like the rest of the team.

Then the coffee arrived, and the Williams team left to attend to business, that of continuing its climb back to competitiveness after a couple of wilderness years in '05 and '06.