By Huw Alban
February 18 2006

Frequent visitors already know about the roller coaster of emotions I went through this week as the timesheets were published from Valencia. Technical Director James Key explains how he feels the week went for Midland and the M16. “This week has been very useful,” he said in the final team press release from Valencia. We've made more progress with the set up and have a much better understanding of the car. We have also made a great step forward with the tyres.”

Since the end of the test at Valencia I have had the opportunity to speak with our sources at Midland. Quietly they are very pleased with the data they have collected, which initially suggests that there is a lot more time to be found in the new car. I also understand that wind tunnel work has resulted in a large number of new pieces that will be added to the car before Bahrain, although I’ve no idea how many of them will debut and be tested next week in Spain.

“Weather conditions have made it difficult to look at subtle changes in test items on the car,” James continued, “so we have mainly concentrated on major changes, as opposed to fine-tuning. The last two days have been difficult, mainly due to the limited time we've had on track. However, we're confident we have a handle on the few issues we had to resolve yesterday (Thursday).

Heading into Barcelona next week, a track we are very familiar with, will give us an even better chance to look at development.

Overall, it has been a good week for us. We've been progressively shaving our lap times and developing in many different areas.”

In addition to this press release statement, James has also spoken on the official Midland website and admitted that the team have yet to work on race simulations. Also, Tiago Monteiro admitted last week that the team have yet to put in a qualifying run either.

Gut feelings tell me that we might see some of this next week at Barcelona. James has admitted here that the team know the circuit well, therefore you'd have thought that the results should be that much easier to judge. We also might start to get a better feel as to where the team really are in relation to their competition. As ever the team here at MF1O will be watching the timesheets with interest, and I promise not to worry on Tuesday.