Bjorn Wirdheim is a fresh addition to the Formula One paddock. Intelligent, humble and hard working, the F3000 Champion made his debut in Melbourne as Jaguar's third driver - a stop on his way to a fulltime F1 racing career. In an exclusive column for Atlas F1, Bjorn will share his experience over the 2004 season and tell us in his own words about the technical and personal challenges he faces throughout the year.

This Week: Bjorn breaks down what is involved in a usual (and successful) Friday practice in Formula One, and gives his view on what is seen as the best driver's circuit on the calendar

It was good to come back to Spa - it’s a fantastic circuit, and it’s certainly a lot more exciting in a Formula One car than it was in a Formula 3000 car! When I came here for my Formula 3000 race I was a bit disappointed because they had just changed the gravel trap through Eau Rouge and Blanchimont - there was tarmac there instead - and that meant you could still go flat through those sections and, if you made a mistake, you just cut across the tarmac at the top of the hill. But in Formula One it was a bit more difficult; it was still possible to do it flat out, but it was so much quicker and the car was really unbalanced as you came over the crest, so it was good fun.

I remember practicing the circuit on my computer the week before I came here the first time for the race, and it actually caused me a lot of trouble because on my qualifying lap I was looking for a braking point that didn’t exist, and I went off! I lost a second and qualified fifth instead of on pole, and unfortunately the race was not one to remember – I think Toccacelo turned in too quick in La Source and he touched me, I touched Pizzonia and that was it for me.

This weekend was a much better one for me, and it followed on from a fairly eventful couple of weeks. I did a shake down before the weekend at Silverstone to work on our new power steering system, which went really well; certainly better than the previous one a little earlier where we were working on our new traction control system. I went out on a set of wets because it was raining, and on the third lap or so I hit a puddle, kept my foot down waiting for the traction control to cut in, but it never did - I spun and hit the wall, losing all four corners, the whole right hand side, the rear wing and the front wing. The impact was only 7gs, so it was nothing really - there was a lot of damage to the car but I was completely fine.

After that it was actually a bit of a relief to get to Spa and get some proper time in the car! As usual the most important thing on my test programme was to find out about tyres, and on Friday morning we were really worried about the rain because according to our weather forecast it was supposed to rain in the second session, so we carried out everything in the first session, with Christian and Mark running the same programme.

In that session we did some endurance tests on the tyres, and I ended the session with the fourth best time overall, which was good - the car was pretty optimised, although I think there was definitely some more time to find more tyres. I was using Christian’s engine from Hungary, but I’ve noticed the engine is pretty good now with a lot of mileage on it.

Then fortunately it was dry in the second session so we were able to carry on, although I wasn’t as happy with the second session as the first because I didn’t get a really good chance to do a lap time in the second session, and afterwards we were really sure what tyre we weren’t going to use in the race, so we did get some good information out of it.

I was pretty unlucky in that session actually – on my first set of new tyres I caught Montoya, because he went through Eau Rouge very slowly and I’d just started my quick lap and was going pretty fast, so I thought to myself I have to overtake him but he didn’t realise I’d come up on him until too late; he thought he’d move over to give me space but he moved over to the left, and that was were I planned to overtake him. It was a bit of an exciting moment, as I had two wheels on the grass!

That was the first run, and I lost a lot of time there; the second time I went out on new tyres I came through La Source on my quick lap and was heading down to Eau Rouge but Ryan Briscoe crashed in front of me - he had a puncture so he went into the wall on the right hand side before bouncing back across the track - and I had to abort my lap.

On the last lap it would have been a good lap time but I got a little bit distracted because I had Jenson Button in front of me. It was just bad timing because I went out and tried to create a big gap to the Minardi in front of me - it doesn’t matter if they are a kilometre in front of you, you always catch them on new tyres - and then Jenson caught me so I had to let him through because he was clearly much quicker, and then I had to start accelerating before the last chicane to get some heat into the brakes and I caught back up with him unfortunately. It was just bad timing, but overall it was a good Friday for me and I can’t be too upset with anything.

And I finally got to drive around Spa in a Formula One car, which is an amazing experience. Eau Rouge is a very important corner, and it can make a difference even if you lift only one or two percent - you lose a lot of top speed along the straight afterwards - so it’s important to get a good run from La Source, and then as you approach Eau Rouge you have to go over to the left to get a good line through, but you have to stay off the kerbs because if you touch them that can easily throw you off line and you’ll end up in the tyre barriers right in front of you.

At the bottom of the hill you have this huge compression – it’s about 8g – it feels like a giant hand is pushing you totally down into your seat. We have to run the car a little bit higher in Spa than anywhere else because of that; if the floor of the car touches you can easily lose control. The compression happens so quickly, and I’m pretty sure I was holding my breath every time I went through there, which you tend to do through the really quick corners.

But if you manage to do that corner flat out it is a great help for the straight afterwards because you end up with a really good top speed, and the straight is very, very bumpy; and you get some compression there as well; so it’s better to stay in the middle of the straight all the way to Les Combes.

The other exciting corner is Blanchimont – you have to get it absolutely right because there is only a narrow line through that corner - you can see how much rubber is on the outside, and if you get into that rubber you are in big trouble! So it’s one of the other corners that you can do flat out, and a lot easier than you can do Eau Rouge, but it’s not as though you are thinking about what you are going to do after practice as you go through that corner – you are completely focused!

I have to say I didn’t like the new lay out of the Bus Stop to be honest; the chicane is a lot more narrow now, a lot slower, and the grip was very low as well. I think it’s a little bit dangerous because there’s no Armco between the entry and the chicanes, so if you spin on the end of Blanchimont in wet conditions you could end up across the chicane with another car going through the chicane at that point, so I’m quite surprised that they changed the layout; it doesn’t make sense.

The Formula 3000 race in Spa was really exciting, with the changing weather leading to a lot of action on the track. My old team Arden did really well, and I would like to congratulate Tonio Liuzzi on taking the Driver's title, as well as Christian Horner for claiming the Constructor's title and Robert Doornbos for claiming his first win. It was a fantastic weekend for them; I remember how I felt in Germany last year when I won the Championship, so I know how Liuzzi feels right now. And I'm sure there'll be a good party back at the factory pretty soon!

Back to Formula One, and the race showed that we got the tyre choice right – Mark was a bit unlucky to go out at the start, but Christian had a great drive and picked up his first points, which made he and the team very happy. After Hungary it was great to move up a bit, and we are now ahead of Toyota so we are all looking forward to getting to Monza for the race after Mark and Christian test there this week. Spa gave everybody a bit of a lift, and we can hardly wait to get there and show what we can do.

På återhörande,             Bjorn Wirdheim's column is written exclusively for Atlas F1 by Bjorn himself, with the assistance of David Cameron. Click here for Bjorn's official website.