At the end of a frantic week of testing, the transporters are trundling home across Europe and the data analysts are already at work back at HQ figuring out what works and what doesn't.
In the space of hardly more than seven days we've had the return of an F1 Champion, the launch of nine cars, the loss of Sauber's technical director, four days of testing and Jules Bianchi has learned that it's never a good idea to go too fast too soon when the brand new Force India VJM05 hasn't got many spare parts.
Kimi Raikkonen's return to F1 has been effortless with the Finn setting the fastest time for Lotus on the first day of testing but characteristically not getting too excited in the process. Michael Schumacher declared it was good to see him back, at the same time talking down the chances of Mercedes taking the 2012 title.
With Mercedes keeping unfamiliar company with HRT and Marussia at not bringing a 2012 car to the Jerez test Michael already believes the team can't win the title. But not for the reason that the car is late: "I don't think we can realistically achieve a championship car immediately from where we started last year, we have to build our way there," Schumacher explained.
And being one test behind is never a good idea, even if "our programme is done in a way we believe in".
Pirelli's Paul Hembery has revealed that all four grades of dry-running tyres in 2012 will be softer than their 2011 counterparts, but with the time gap between them likely to be closer to 0.8 seconds a lap than the previous 1.5 a lap.
As noted elsewhere (by Dave Jorgensen) on these pages, there have been the usual high number of positives from the first test with Jarno Trulli topping it off by saying it was the best first day of testing he had ever experienced in his F1 career. Certainly those who were slow but reliable thought that it was good to have reliability and speed would come - such as Sauber. And those with speed but no reliability - like Red Bull - believed reliability would come.
The two things are markedly different and whereas the unreliable areas of the car tend to point themselves out by smoking or breaking off, getting a slow car to go quicker needs a lot more invention.
Along with the new launches we have seen the unveiling of new sponsors whose names have been writ large on the sides of the cars. The one shouting for attention on the side of the Lotus - CLEAR ANTI-DANDRUFF - has to be one of the most in-your-face adverts for some time. Not since the Team Durex Surtees of the late 1970s have we faced potential embarrassment of this nature.
You see the unfortunate thing is people are going to be looking at Kimi and Romain to see if they are using their sponsor's products and anybody who has been affected by the scalp condition will know that the one colour you don't want to be wearing is black. Ever since his Ferrari days, continuing through Red Bull in the WRC, Kimi has taken refuge in an over-sized baseball hat, so Romain is going to carry a lot of the attention.
This, of course, is a minor side issue to the one that has preoccupied the press since the new cars broke cover just over a week ago. Namely the new F1 Franken-noses as typified by Ferrari's "Playmobil inspired" F2012.
There is something about any car painted in Ferrari red (Rosso Corsa) that makes it stand out and we are used to seeing beautiful objects of desire from the Scuderia. Each generation has its own favourite Ferrari and whereas I can appreciate the classic Ferrari 312T of the 1970s, for me John Barnard's Ferrari 640 is the most beautiful F1 car of all time. Those arriving at the sport later will probably prefer one of Rory Byrne's series of spectacularly successful Ferraris that carried Michael Schumacher to a succession of world titles.
Since the Ferrari was launched, there have been a series of jaw-droppingly ugly cars to hit the grid, none more than the Sauber C31 whose paint job doesn't help. It is actually a great place to put a sponsor logo because the typical view of the car is front-on. Ferrari might be missing a trick by putting their car's number there, when they could be making their bump earn money.
Lotus technical director James Allison explained that although it may look a bit like a return to 80's car styling, the upper part of the nose is much less aerodynamically significant than what goes on underneath. "Upper surfaces of noses are quite insensitive. It is the lower surfaces of noses where the performance lies and if you look at all the cars' lower surfaces they are much more carefully designed in terms of air flow." This is why the Red Bull can get away with their mysterious "slot for driver cooling".
There have also been some unintended consquences, too. Take a look at the Caterham in our Day 4 Photos from Jerez. With the two bulges at the edges of the chassis and the green snout, surely this is the Caterham Crocodile Nose. Or Caterham CT01 Croc for short.
Does it matter that the grid of the 2012 will be known as F1's Minger Dynasty? Should the FIA introduce an Ugly Test to go along with their 17-point crash test programme - judged by grid girls from the 20 race venues with a helping hand from Bernie Ecclestone? It's nice to have cars that look a million dollars as well as costing several millions dollars, but the most important thing is how they perform and how they race. And the first signs from the Jerez test is that the rules have helped bunch the cars up significantly, pointing to a bumper year of racing.
Scale model manufacturers Minichamps might not be too happy though. If the pre-season order was for 10,000 Sauber C31s, that looks to us about 9,500 optimistic already. They've probably still got a warehouse full of Tyrrells with X-wings...
Andrew Davies
