Am I the only person surprised by today's testing at Paul Ricard? Probably.

So soon after recovering from the incident-filled Barcelona, the teams have shown up in France, in preparation for the eagerly anticipated (by me, anyway) Monaco GP.

It was all about the tyres, as the teams discover the new properties of "super-soft" Bridgestones, and certain teams seemed to pick them up better than others.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest. Big surprise.

Ralf Schumacher was second fastest. Big surprise, without the sarcasm!

Talking about his lap, Ralf commented on the weather conditions on track:

The car was quite oversteery early in the day and that wasn't helped by the strong gusting winds that, at one point, were moving me over a couple of metres on the main straight. You sometimes get that on a motorway overtaking a lorry on a windy day but it's not a nice feeling at 200mph!

- Ralf Schumacher

I find the idea of that really rather terrifying, but that's why I'm not an F1 driver!

Massa, in the Ferrari, had the excitement of Spain diminish somewhat, being only 6th fastest overall, just in front of a Honda.

So, are the differences all down to the tyres, or what?