Michael Schumacher puts the Mercedes through its paces

February is a busy month on the Formula 1 calendar, even if the teams are not due to race until they line up on the grid at Bahrain on the 14th of March, finally the teams bring out their latest designs for 4 sessions of testing. This week teams including Ferrari, McLaren and the team formerly known as Brawn GP, Mercedes, have been putting both their new cars and drivers through their paces on the Valencia circuit with Ferrari setting the pace over the 3 days of practice.

Both Felippe Massa and Fernando Alonso topped the leaderboards during the sessions in some cases being more than 1 second ahead of their rivals, although at the moment this could be due to varying fuel amounts in the cars and other drivers testing reliability more than outright speed round the circuit.

Michael Schumacher showed his amazing talent has not been dulled in his absence away from the sport by outpacing his younger team-mate, Nico Rosberg, to finish as one of the quickest drivers of the testing sessions. The 7 time world champion showed the younger drivers that he can still get in a car and be on pace within only a few laps of leaving the pits and managed to put in a total of just 40 laps on his first day back.

Fernando Alonso set the fatest time whilst testing the new Ferrari

Barrichello appreciated that his comments could be taken the wrong way and distorted in the media but after seeing the pace of Schumacher on his first day he hoped his words serve as a warning to the former world champion’s team-mate, “He [Nico] is a great talent and I wish him all the best, and maybe tomorrow you will see the newspapers saying, ‘Rubens tells Nico to get out of there’, but I am not being bad about it,” the Brazilian added. “I wish him all the best because I think he is a talented boy who can be world champion. If he has the chances of being world champion in the same team as Michael, then he can be world champion anywhere. Let’s put it this way.”

The teams will resume testing again next week when they hit the Jerez circuit in Southern Spain near to Cadiz for 4 days starting on the 10^th of February.

In other news from the sport, the FIA is currently looking at adjusting the point system from the originally revised numbers that had been brought in to compensate for the increased number of teams this year. The original decision to adopt a system more in line with the MotoGP racers is still going ahead as planned but there has been an adjustment to some of the points given out for certain places as shown in the table below.

The change in points is intended to reward drivers for winning races rather than the last few seasons where the difference between first and second was only 2 points, although this has led to some of the closest finishes in the championship many commentors feel that it was easily possible for a driver to win the championship without finishing first in any of the races.

The final update to the regulations, like the new revised points system is also pending review, is for drivers who make it through to the 3rd stage of qualifying to use the same tyres when they start the race. This should lead to a more tactical selection as people try to decide whether to go for soft tyres to get position on the grid or for harder compound tyres so that they can run longer into the race before need a new set.

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The Formula 1 team Toro Rosso welcomed the return of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to the world championships by getting Sebastien Buemi to test last year’s car with studded tyres on a lake near to the circuit in Montreal. As you can see, even with a vehicle notorious for generating wheelspin, the young driver showed off his winter driving skills and controls the car with aplomb, including recovering expertly from a spin on the ice.

Canada’s main racing circuit is surrounded by water and has always held some of the more intense driving battles with the circuit featuring long straights into tight hairpin bends and plenty of other opportunities for overtaking. It will certainly be making a grand comeback in the new year and should hopefully have implemented much needed repairs to parts of the track.

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Michael Schumacher at a press conference at the 2005 United States Grand Prix. Photographed by: Chris J. Moffett

Schumacher, 41, unfortunately had to pull out of his return to Ferrari earlier this year after a long standing neck injury from a motorbiking accident, but now looks to have put that behind him as he prepares to start a new season with the Mercedes team. Many people are welcoming the move and are hoping that Schumacher will be challenging the other drivers and showing them that his skills are still as sharp as the day he left in 2004. He will partner fellow German Nico Rosberg who left the Williams at the end of the 2009 season.

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