"I said before the Spanish Grand Prix - and nothing has changed since - that we will be closer to Ferrari in Austria, simply because the circuit suits our car." That's Ralf Schumacher speaking and I can hear the cheering from here if and when he's correct. Formula One™ is in a bit of a drastic state at the moment. I can't tell you the number of people who come up to me and say "it's all a bit boring at the moment, isn't it?"

Yet you can't blame the people from Ferrari, nor their driver. They're just doing everything a little bit better than everyone else at the moment, that's all. And everyone else knows that they've got to pull their fingers out, those that can. And if it's any consolation - and it may mean that he just tries harder - Michael Schumacher has never won in Austria. And Ferrari have won only three times in 24 races and two of those were the first two.

The editor says that he wants lots of changing conditions and loads of incidents, and he might well get both. Austria, at this time of the year, can be changeable, with cool weather, spring rain, anything really. I was watching a cycle race from Switzerland on television last weekend (sad, yes, I know) and the finish was in a snowstorm. I think we can do without that.

That reminds me of a European Formula Three race I went to in mid-April, 1978. The Osterreichring, as it then was, was surrounded in snow. Only the track was dry.

The race went really well until one driver cut a corner too fine at the first, Hella Licht, chicane, and spread snow all over the track. The next 15 cars, one by one, slid off the track and into one another. No one was hurt, but the damage was substantial and the mixture of mud and snow was unbelievable.

Surviving the A1-Ring

It's not difficult, actually, provided you're prepared for the weather. That means a good, substantial raincoat, nothing flimsy, because once it starts to rain, it doesn't stop. You don't get spring showers, only spring rain - which could go on until spring ends. And you need good substantial boots, because the water turns everything to mud which is also why you need a coat and not an umbrella because your hands are going to be occupied keeping yourself upright.

An early memory of the Osterreichring (I'll explain the relationship between that circuit and A1-Ring later) is of people crawling through the mud early in the morning. That's because they have been drinking all night, the other factor to be survived at the A1-Ring. They do like to sit at their wooden benches and chuck back their beer, lots of it, and the mixture of beer and mud doesn't make for easy walking. Hence, after a while, body, beer and mud all come together in a gorgeous, unconscious bath - until you sober up, that is.

There aren't too many big hotels around so many of us stay in bed and breakfasts. Jackie Stewart stayed in the modest little hotel in the village where I stay, and one year there was a frisson of excitement because the police began to gather. It transpired that Princess Anne and husband was Jackie's guest, and they were staying in the little pub as well! There simply wasn't anything grander.

For the rest of us, the other thing to survive is the schnapps, which, at 80p a shot, does slip down rather easily. Austrian food isn't exactly sophisticated, so there's nothing exciting there: potatoes and cabbage and good lumps of meat, but nothing particularly daring. As for the countryside, it's lovely: green and mellow and hopefully not too white.

The circuit