Friday was busier than usual at Barcelona, with all the teams eager to find out whether the car upgrades they have brought to the first European race have paid off in lap time.
As ever, itv.com/f1 columnist James Allen was paying close attention and gives his reading of the form for the weekend here.
Today felt a bit like the start of a brave new world, with many teams fielding quite different cars from the ones they had in Melbourne.
And there is more to come: Ferrari described the double diffuser they have here as the ‘first iteration’, while Renualt are already on their second version and Pat Symonds says that they are uncovering new possibilities all the time. Such is the way with new rules.
So today the question was: Is there any change to the pecking order?
And inevitably the picture is clouded by the way teams approach Fridays, with some trying a low-fuel run on new soft tyres, while others stay on high fuel the whole time.
Nevertheless we can say a few things about what we saw today.
It looks very much as though Brawn have made a useful step and will fight for the win here in Barcelona. I cannot see anyone moving ahead of them significantly.
The question mark is Red Bull Racing, who also look very strong; in fact it looks like there’s nothing much to choose between them.
Both teams had new parts being fitted last night until the early hours of the morning. RBR mechanics left around 3am, Brawn half an hour later.
It will be a good scrap between them, I think, and I shall be very interested to see whether the new-spec Brawn is a better qualifying car than the old one.
We know that it should be a lot stronger in the wet than before and that could come in handy on Sunday when there is a chance of rain.
Toyota had a mixed day, but they should be strong here.
Ferrari need an injection of pace this weekend from their substantially modified car and in the morning it looked pretty good.
It was harder to judge this afternoon; Kimi Raikkonen was 10th, with a time set on the first flying lap of a three-lap run, whereas Sebastian Vettel set his time on the 11th lap of a run.
Both Ferrari drivers reported that the car feels more nailed to the track – in other words they have found more downforce with the new package.
The question now is, will it be enough to get them into the scrap with Red Bull, Toyota and Brawn.
I think probably not, but both cars should be solidly in the top 10 and one of them might get a top-six grid slot.
McLaren have an updated floor and front wing, but Lewis Hamilton reckons it’s not a step forward.
I have to say I’m surprised to hear that as the car looks fantastic on the track with good change of direction. But the lap times are nor fantastic, so far.
Renault and Williams are the question mark for tomorrow and Sunday.
Once again Williams did the low-fuel run on new tyres and got the two fastest times, but they will want to get both cars into the top 10 tomorrow.
Fernando Alonso has been qualifying impressively of late and progress for Renault would be for Nelson Piquet to get into the top 12 and Alonso to qualify and race in the top five or six.
But the competition up there is very intense.
It’s also worth noting that Toro Rosso are now in the same specification as Red Bull were at the start of the season, so they will have taken a step forward.