Well, you couldn't call today's practice at the A1-Ring boring. This afternoon, in particular, people were spinning off all over the place. Most spectacular of all was Jacques Villeneuve with a very rapid spin into the final corner which he then managed to correct and get the car going the right way again.

And when you looked at the times, there was Rubens, confirmed at Ferrari for the next two years, fastest of all and just three hundredths of a second ahead of teammate Michael Schumacher. But a similar margin behind, just 0.034s, was Juana Pablo Montoya and another 0.044s further back was Kimi Raikkonen, all very close. They were covered by just 0.108s, just over a tenth of a second and you don't get much closer than that.

And look who came next? Allan McNish! And then came Enrique Bernoldi, Pedro de la Rosa, Olivier Panis (who did 66 laps during the day and suggested that his salary was based on the number of laps that he does during practice - only five short of race distance) and then David Coulthard and Takuma Sato.

Well, don't expect it to stay that way, of course, but there was loads of action, the first ten are covered by a second and nearly the whole field, apart from Mr Webber, are covered by a gnat's over 2.0s.

Well, I've just been talking to one or two team principals and what I'm writing sounds as upbeat as they were this evening. They've all decided to be nice to one another, do something sometime in the future about cutting costs, and start talking up the sport instead of saying how boring it is at the moment.

I had pre-empted this by chatting to one of ITV's producers on the way out to Austria, in the exciting environs of Stansted Airport. I asked what the reaction has been to recent races, and he emphasised that viewing figures were going up. I had suggested otherwise: weren't all our acquaintances saying how boring it is and how they weren't going to watch the races. The straight detail of the Spanish Grand Prix, for instance, was that the viewing figures actually improved and increased during the race itself. Which is why the team principals are going to start talking up the sport.

I strongly believe that the next few races will be more lively anyway. This one is always a bit of a lottery and as I mentioned in the preview, Michael Schumacher has never won it, and McLaren's record is excellent. Then we go to Monaco: however much people have to follow one another, someone will always get impatient and force their way past. And Montreal is pretty good too, because it's so hard on brakes.

So keep watching, keep telling people about pitpass and keep following Formula One™. Just look on the Spanish GP as a minor glitch. It will all get exciting again, I'm sure.

Bob Constanduros

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