Brazil has put on its best face today: hot sun throughout the day, blue skies, not too much pollution. In fact Sao Paulo at Easter has got to be the best time to run the race because there's no traffic and the place is really quite bearable. Even the 30 degree heat feels better here than in Malaysia; what a way to start a season with two races in the 30s!

On track, there have been plenty of incidents and spins. It is always difficult to clean up a track but any other means other than with racing cars. Consequently, we've seen a huge number of spins with everyone having a moment or two. It's also quite interesting how the tyres have developed during the day, with the Bridgestones better on the dirty circuit early on, and then the Michelins coming into their own later in the day.

Ferrari, meanwhile, have run their new car, and it certainly doesn't seem to be the huge step forward that everyone feared - yet. It's quick, sure, but that much quicker than the old car? The jury is still out.

Poor Rubens, of course, has had another miserable time here. He should really give this one a miss, just as Jacques should give Montreal a miss too. Neither home races are very kind to their native drivers.

Off track, however, there are one or two potential hassles. Williams have been having a good snoop around Ferrari, wondering why they can have four sets of tyres mounted up for each of Michael Schumacher's cars when it apparently clearly states that the sets relate to the driver, not the car. Michael, you see, has an F2002 and a spare F2001. They take different wheel sizes and are not interchangeable. So should he need the spare car, he needs tyres for that as well as for his race car, and so two lots of four sets need mounting up.

Once again, the subject of the new rules has come up, and one informed source told me that Max Mosley is emphatically against testing during the season, so much so that he wants to ban it during the season, make race day Fridays into test days and perhaps even increase the number of races to 20. Many feel that as testing doesn't earn money, it would be much better to ban it and race which does earn money.

It really is a case of watch this space, because there is still a long way to go when it comes to the FIA's decisions. There are rumours of a legal challenge to the FIA by at least two teams, but that certainly wasn't confirmed by either of them here. But given that we have until 2004 before the rules come in, I think we can be fairly certain that things certainly aren't set in stone yet.

The one thing that seems to be occupying everyone's minds is the potential penalty of being moved back 10 places on the grid for some infringement. What everyone wants is stability, but with stewards changing race by race, and very few of them ever having had a competition background, it does seem that there is cause for concern here. I think the FIA would do very well to restructure the stewards' system or perhaps appoint a driver representative. But that's all to come.

Meanwhile, we work towards qualifying and who might be on pole position. Have McLaren found some more power? Have they solved their reliability issues? Is the new Ferrari quicker than it currently seems? Can Williams-BMW asset their superiority? We will begin to see tomorrow.

Bob Constanduros