Speaking following his team's test at Jerez, Christian Klien gave Pitpass his initial thoughts on how things are progressing.

"We experienced some problems with the cooling of the car," admitted the youngster, "and that takes time to get fixed back at the factory. We also had a slight problem with brakes, we quite often locked the fronts and that's why I went straight into the gravel on Friday, and damaged the floor.

"Everybody's pushing to the limit," he continued. "At present there are a lot of little problems, but nothing serious. Also, in the cold there's no grip and therefore the car is not working really well for the first two laps."

Asked how the Ferrari V8 compares to last year's Cosworth, he replied: "It's a totally different engine, totally you can't compare it. But it is running quite well and we don't have any problems so far.

"It seems to be reliable and powerful but at the moment you cannot really compare it to the other teams, as there are not many on the track with the 2006 chassis."

This season, the Austrian has a 'secure' drive, whereas in 2005 this wasn't the case, with the second seat being shared with Tonio Liuzzi. This must make things a lot easier.

"Oh definitely," he replies. "Everything is sorted for this year since before Christmas, and so I was preparing myself, training a lot over the weeks. Now I know that it's testing, driving and then the races, all the races, so mentally it's a different setting. I'm really happy."