I try to avoid being on holiday during a Grand Prix weekend. That’s not always easy once the European season gets underway, as you will appreciate.

Looking at the diary in February I quickly came to realise that the summer was going to be busy, Motor Sport having put my name next to a most encouraging number of events, some of them Grands Prix. An early holiday, or no holiday, were the options.

The latter option did little to improve the atmosphere at home so here we are, in Corfu, and the Spanish GP in Barcelona is not exactly headline news in the local newspapers. The Greeks are a great deal more concerned with football than they are with motor racing. And it is Easter weekend – well, Holy Week to be precise – and access to British newspapers and broadcasting is, to say the least, limited.

Easter Sunday found us with friends in the mountain village of Skripero, slowly roasting a large lamb over an open fire, and easing into the day with an ouzo. To receive the race coverage on ITV requires the installation of a satellite dish the like of which you would expect to find atop GCHQ or some similar secretive government establishment. This is clearly not an option in an area of such outstanding natural beauty. And nor should it be. We therefore break away from the Easter celebrations to watch the Grand Prix unfold on Antenna, a Greek channel with, naturally, a Greek commentary.

As the Ferraris lead the field round lap after lap the commentator doesn’t sound very excited but there is much discussion amongst our international party about what might, or might not, happen over the duration of this first European encounter.

The Italians are pleased, but not surprised, to see the red cars out in front. The Americans want to know what Michael Schumacher is doing these days and why did he stop at the top of his game. (The Italians glance across at Kimi who, through the interference, appears to be cruising to victory). The Brits want to know if Lewis really has what it takes and whether he is truly as cool and charming as he appears? The Greeks, understandably, are more concerned with the lamb slowly turning on the spit.

I mention these things this week because distance delivers a little perspective upon the matter. If you have not seen practice or qualifying, and you do not understand the grid, the race somehow loses some of its intensity. If you have just recently joined the throng around a TV set in a café to watch a most enthralling football match, joining in the general hullabaloo, then the Grand Prix seems somehow not to bring you to the edge of your seat.

In the days following the race at Barcelona I have come to appreciate that there was some excitement, some intrigue, and possibly some measure of the margin that the red cars appear to have over the rest of the field. And it’s interesting how the team from Maranello has a following wherever you travel, in the same way that Manchester United clearly had plenty of support in the cafes of Corfu when they strode onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

The village of Arillas, from where I am writing, seems a world away from fast cars, let alone racing cars. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I am tempted to start to believe that I could wean myself off the drug that got into my bloodstream all those years ago at Goodwood. But I know that such a process is not going to happen. As the grid forms up for the next one I know I will not wish I was here, whatever I may have written on post cards this week.

Incidentally, the internet connection through which you will have received this brief report is not so easy to find. So thanks Dimitris at Brouklis where I have perched to satisfy the terms of my contract. I guess that Jenks would have simply walked down to the post box by the sea and dropped his envelope in with fingers crossed. Those were the days.

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I set out, the other day, to talk to two of the Fat Cats of Formula 1. It was only a partial success.

I wanted to talk to Nick Fry (above) from the Honda team and to Christian Horner (below) from Red Bull Racing. I succeeded in the former and dismally failed in the latter.
Nick Fry because I wanted to know more about the arrival of Ross Brawn in the team and Christian Horner because of the progress that Adrian Newey is clearly making with the 2008 car.

By the time I’d got myself organised and had an interesting chat with Fry, I had missed Horner. Quite understandably he’d given up waiting and probably had far better things to do with his time just ahead of the European season. Problem is, will he ever speak to me again? Have I gone into the black book of people who wasted his time? Hope not, as he’s an articulate bloke and his team is showing all the signs of moving up the order. Anyway, I apologised, and will wait a decent interval before knocking on his door again.

I like Nick Fry because, it seems to me, he has taken a lot of flak over the disappointing performance of the Honda Grand Prix team and yet he always seems so positive and upbeat about life. He came to Formula 1 from the motor industry, not an easy move, as things change a lot more rapidly in racing than ever they do in industry. He climbed the corporate ladder at Ford with almost indecent haste but his move to the whirlwind of F1 coincided with a dreadful time for the Honda team and somebody had to take the blame. The wacky ‘earth dream’ livery for the cars hardly helped the team’s predicament.

Things are looking up, however, for Fry and some of this is undoubtedly down to his recruitment of the highly respected Brawn. Will he be the miracle cure for all their woes?

“The effect Ross has had on the team is nothing, and everything, depending which way you look at it,” says Fry. “Over the past year or so we’d been building up a very good engineering team so we had already made progress and let’s not forget that this year’s car was designed before Ross joined us. However, and this is a very, very big however, when Ross arrived he gave us all huge confidence, and that is so important. Without him, we might have begun to panic, but he is turning our natural optimism into a reality. He has helped us to focus on getting the basics working properly, he has laid a steady hand on the tiller, and – because of his past achievements – he has instilled more confidence into the people who work for him. I was absolutely singular in pursuing, and then hiring, Ross – he can definitely do for us what he did for Ferrari. We’re not there yet, but we will be in the top 10 in the next few races.”

So the much publicised recruitment drive of last year was worth all the stress and controversy?

“I interviewed more people from other teams than I can possibly tell you,” he smiles, “including a couple that became very public. If our dining room walls had ears then they would have a great story to tell, with the number of people who passed through there, but I’d made up my mind that Ross was the right person to get the job done. Given time, I have no doubt at all that we can be competing for the world championship. We’ve already seen what he can do, we have new aero packages, and there is no fallback plan. We are on our way, and I am absolutely convinced we will build from here.”

Nick Fry also has a feeling for the history of Grand Prix racing. He’s read Motor Sport since he was a teenager and says he always will. That’s good. And he likes Spa and Monza. “Yes, the sport has to retain some of its heritage,” he says, “and I can still get misty-eyed at Monza, even on a wet Wednesday. Formula 1 would be much the poorer for losing those European circuits and I can never see that happening.” Let’s hope he’s right.

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