Well, there you go, or don’t go as in the case of Prost.

Will it matter? Do we care if the likes of Prost, Arrows and Minardi are not there next season?

Possibly not, but where do you draw the line? Should that also apply to Benetton and Sauber?

Because if it does, we are accepting that the only teams that will be competing in future will be those that are owned or very closely associated with an engine manufacturer.

With the enormous budgets that organisations like Ford, Mercedes and BMW bring with them we may see a situation develop where the cost of entry will be so high that no new teams will attempt F1.

It may already be inevitable as tobacco advertising is being phased out and motor manufacturer money is replacing the much needed funding, but if the mergers of the major automobile manufacturers continue there may not be more than six or seven players, and therefore teams, very soon.

I am not defending Prost. So far this year they have definitely made little or no progress. In fact, in a world where getting better faster than your competitor has become an essential objective of even the smallest business, Prost have been getting worse at an alarming rate.

Last year they finished the season with a lot of promise. I certainly felt that they needed one or possibly two seasons to get into a position to start challenging the leaders. All they managed to achieve this year is to challenge for last place.

The whole team seems to be completely mismanaged and disorganised. The drivers are openly criticising their cars, mechanics go on strike, the cars have been patently undriveable during several races, reliability is only achieved at the sacrifice of speed and the overall package is pathetically slow compared to last year.

In fact, apart from their special hue of blue, I can’t think of anything that they managed to do as well as last year (and last year Prost spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort to get the colour right too).

The time has come to stop blaming their engine (although it is pathetic) and recognise that the rot starts at the top. The team is just not being managed. Modern F1 racing is a team sport. Teams, to be effective, have to be managed, trained and motivated. They need a manager, not an owner that mopes around complaining about how hard it is. Of course it is hard! If it was not I could have offered one of my kids to do it for them.

The A1-Ring (near Knittelfeld) is a moderately fast track. Average speed on a dry track should be around 214km/H (132mph), some 15km/H (10mph) faster than the recent French Grand Prix. Of the 15 corners 6 are under 100mph (160km/H) and of those only two are under 80mph (130km/H).

Although it is possible to get downforce at speeds lower than 80mph, the wings will need to be so big that the cost in speed on the faster parts of the circuit becomes prohibitive. So it is likely that the teams will set up for good grip between 80mph and 120mph. Pretty much an average wing size, front and back.

This is McLaren’s ideal set up and I expect to see them do very well. They appear to have the power to carry a little more wing than Ferrari and that not only gives them better grip but also saves tyre wear as the car does not move around as much.

McLaren have now overcome their reliability problems and are focusing on speed and grip (engine, chassis and aerodynamic performance). Ferrari should be focused on the same issues but I suspect that they are putting a lot of effort into making sure that their cars will be able to perform well on the last lap too.

If Ferrari do not have the power to match McLaren in straight-line speed we can expect to see Schumacher use smaller wings again. The reduction in drag will give him the ability to be as fast as McLaren in a straight line but he will again be heavier on tyres and we may see his performance degrade once grip goes.

Barrichello, on the other hand, does not seem to have Schumacher’s ability to drive well with limited grip and will probably go out with a higher downforce configuration. Depending on where he qualifies he may again hold up one or both of the McLarens.

For those of you that are thinking of accusing me of favouring McLaren again: I am not on their side. I just think that they are faster. Once Barrichello is consistently faster, or even as fast as the leading McLaren, I will believe that Ferrari have a faster car.

Comparing Schumacher with the McLarens and concluding that the Ferrari is faster than the McLarens does not make sense as I believe that Schumacher is considerably faster than either McLaren driver.

During qualifying Ferrari seem very fast. I expect to see both cars qualify better than 4^th and they could easily qualify 1^st and 2^nd.

In the past there were three possible overtaking places. These were at the end of the gently sweeping bend that ends in the Remus Kurve, braking into the Gosser Kurve and at the end of the pit straight.

I am not sure that we will be seeing any overtaking. It was a brave man that overtook under brakes into Remus as he would have had to run on the outside of the preceding long curve to be on the inside for Remus. Today running off line on the outside is probably not possible any more and the other two straights are just too short for overtaking. Qualifying and pit stops will again be the major deciding factors.