Why the rain should keep pouring for testing

Despite Massa's mammoth amount of laps, he's spent a fair bit of his time in the wet

It’s not only us Brits who seem obsessed with the weather but the entire F1 world thanks to the majority of testing being a wash out. Personally I think it is brilliant.

Venues for testing can only be changed if there will be rain every day, Friday looks to be dry so it appears the teams are stuck at Jerez, there could well be discussion to test elsewhere when it’s Barcelona’s turn to play host however.

The continually damp conditions are a headache for the teams who are desperate to get dry running and understand where and how they need to develop. This will be particularly painful to the new teams, although only Lotus and Virgin Racing have made an appearance.

However, there are some benefits; with testing being all over the place it creates even more mystery as to who will be on the pace and the teams won’t have the clearest of ideas about where the opposition is. This could lead to some surprises at Bahrain. It’s unlikely to make a major impact and the pace of the teams is hard to predict anyway when it comes to the tests, but a little more of the unknown and a more unscripted development race can only add a touch more madness.

The teams still get to try out their cars, the rookies still have the opportunity to try to settle in and get the mileage under their belts but there is still the potential for a surprise. I sympathise with the new teams who need all the data they can get but they are unlikely to be competing regularly with the established order regardless.  So I’m not going to complain at the situation when it has the-albeit small-possibility of throwing us a surprise.