The little group of First Class passengers gathered around baggage carousel number seven in Heathrow's terminal three at 6.30 this morning was scarcely a joyful one. They rarely are at that time of the morning anyway, but none of this lot had much to shout about.

Allan McNish and Jenson Button could both legitimately grouse about their lot, while a few yards away, David Coulthard had every right to look miserable if he wanted to, although his companion and a conversation with BAR's David Richards prevented the ever optimistic Scotsman from getting too down in the dumps.

And then, cruising around the outside, towing his carry-on baggage in the fast lane, came Williams's Patrick Head, breezing along without a care in the world. It was a symbolic moment as he headed straight for the exit while the others waited for their worldly possessions. As in the previous afternoon, the tactics were absolutely spot-on!

It was a funny old race at Sepang. We were all convinced that Michael Schumacher was going to win - and yet now we know that with or without damage to his nose section, Michael was unlikely to have done so. Ralf got it right; a one-stop was the way. Rubens was nowhere near with his two-stop, even before he retired.

This one must have been particularly satisfying for the Grove team. And Munich were pretty delighted, too, because this was the first ever BMW one-two in Grand Prix racing. And they're going to keep up the pressure too. The team has a two car, four day test starting tomorrow at Barcelona.

After the Ferrari-McLaren ding-dong in practice, Williams came on stronger in qualifying and were right there for the race. McLaren were never really in it, and when David Coulthard's car came past on lap 12 sounding like a nine cylinder fartbox the writing was on the wall. Kimi was dropping about a second a lap to Ralf ahead of him until a cloud of smoke shot from his McLaren-Mercedes as he slowed for the final hairpin on lap 24 and his bolt was shot. You can imagine some pretty serious interfacing between Stuttgart and Northamptonshire.

Come to that, there will be some pretty serious stuff going on between Honda and its teams. They are being blitzed by Toyota, who have only been in the game for five minutes. You had to feel sorry for Takuma, trying to overtake Mika Salo and spearing his teammate instead. Afterwards he went round and apologized to every member of the team. It's hard to know if BAR and Jordan should be doing the same thing to Honda, or vice versa!

But to return to Toyota, they have made a pretty impressive start. Mika Salo, who is under-rated by some people, put his car tenth on the grid which is no mean feat and was pushing the Renault pair. When all that came to naught, there was Allan McNish ready to take over - only for his inexperienced team to come over all flummoxed when Salo arrived unannounced when they were ready to receive McNish. Consequently, when the wee Scot did turn up, they didn't know what to do, and before they could bolt back on the tyres they'd just taken off, Felipe Massa had gone and nicked the final World Championship point. From one debutant to another.

What's making Toyota look so good is that so many others are looking so bad. There's Jaguar, thinking of reverting to last year's car. BAR, Jordan and Honda not knowing who to blame - although Jordan have lined up a sacrificial Hamidy - and maybe Richards will send an Oastler to join him. And Arrows could well be pinching the odd early point if only they could get what seem to be quite competitive cars off the start line.

One team we haven't mentioned is Renault, who are looking to be the wild cards just at the moment. While that greater joker Flavio Briatore tries to tell us that this is a new team and why can't they be thought of they same as Toyota - as he tries to buy time - the on-track performance isn't looking bad at all. In fact they could quite easily be battling it out with the quiet Swiss for fourth while the rest wallow in their wake.