Mika Salo admits that it's been an extraordinary ten days. Just two weeks ago, he was preparing for his wedding to his Japanese girlfriend Noriko. His friends had prepared a stag party for him. In short, this involved dropping him 20 meters into the North Sea from a helicopter. "I didn't really know where I was, until I saw this ship coming to get me," he says now.

Three days later in Helsinki, he was practising a dance routine for his wedding. Michael Schumacher had crashed the day before at Silverstone, and Mika had been travelling when the news came out that he had broken his right leg in two places. "I had a phone call while I was in the dance studio and two hours later I was in a plane going to Italy," was how he summed up the call to drive for Ferrari.

Ten days later and he is in Austria, making his first public appearance as a Ferrari driver. He has spent four days testing at Fiorano, Ferrari's test track, completing some 230 laps of the circuit. The temperature was in the thirties and the car ran like clockwork. After years with back-of-grid teams, this in itself was something new for him.

It wasn't simply pounding around the circuit, either. He practised pit stops, starts, set-ups - he uses something somewhere between Eddie's and Michael's - and just about everything else. "I spent most of the time either at Fiorano or at Jean Todt's house. I was allowed home for the wedding although they tried to find out if I could come back to test afterwards!"

It has been a rapid initiation, but has it been a special one? "Of course, it's something that everybody - even the thoughest of the guys would deny it, especially now - but I know that everbody would like to drive for Ferrari. Having said that, I don't totally understand it yet because it's happened so quickly to me. I think I might understand what is happening after the race." A dream come true, then? "It's only partly a dream come true, because I would like to do the whole season, not just the race."

Has it been easy getting back into a racing car after two and a half months? "It only takes three laps or so for it to come back. It's just the eyes that take a little longer, but after a couple of days at Fiorano they came back as well."

Mika has been delighted with the way that it has all come together. "They've worked really hard to make me feel at home and to make sure that I understand everything," he says. His position, however, is interesting. "They're giving me everything. Nobody has told me that I'm second driver. As far as I know Eddie and I are at the same level at the moment. Of course, if there are team orders I have to listen to them. But so far I've been told nothing and we're racing already, so I'll just go for it. Of course, I will do my best and if I have a chance to go for a win, I will, but if I hear on the radio to let Eddie past I will, but not yet!"

His first few days have given him ample opportunity to compare the Ferrari to the other car that he's driven so far this year - the BAR. But he's unwilling to compare the two. "I would rather not. They're different, a totally different thing. BAR is a new team whereas Ferrari is the oldest team and that's the difference."

But he goes on to say that it isn't a power difference, "it's just everything else really. I thought there would be a huge difference in the power but there isn't. It's everything else, how everything works. The Ferrari has more grip, it's easier to drive, the engine is more driveable, everything is just different. It's hard to describe. There's a huge difference in the grip and traction. The car is just so much easier to drive. It's impossible to explain."

Mika admits that he's not getting everything from the car. "I'm getting more all the time. It's just that there's a lot of things you can do in the car - like changing the brake balance during the lap - that can help you in your driving when you're out on the track but right now I'm too busy driving the car so I can't do those things. Consequently, I'm losing a little to Eddie under braking even though I'm quicker than him on the high speed stuff, but I'll get it under control tomorrow."

Interestingly, he has telephoned Michael Schumacher frequently, as the man whom he has replaced has offered him considerable help. "Just call me when you want to know something," has been the message from Schumacher from his home in Switzerland, "providing I'm not asleep!"

Mika missed the final 40 minutes of today's afternoon free practice session after he spun off. Again, that was part of the learning curve. "I went off today because I made a stupid mistake which I normally don't do. I was just playing with something in the car and I just lost it but it was good that I did it today and not tomorrow or Sunday. I had to do it some time. I've been in the car for four days now and that's the first time that I've been off the track, so it was good that it happened now."

Mika not only finds himself teaming up with his old friend from his Japanese days, Eddie Irvine, but as a direct competitor, in somewhat equal machinery, of his compatriot and former Formula Three rival, Mika Hakkinen. How much are they rivals? "I haven't seen Mika since all this happened. I just bumped into him in the toilet today. Yes, we grew up in the same street, but we have nothing wrong with our relationship, nothing at all. Isn't it right in racing that everyone is your enemy? You can be friends without your helmet on but when you're sitting in the car, that's where the friendship ends, with anybody."

And the future? "I don't know," says Mika. "That's too far away. I'm just thinking of tomorrow, one day at a time."