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 discusses drug testing in motorsports and the little understood problems involved with flat spotting tyres

Contrary to common belief, the Hungaroring is quite a tricky circuit. The first time I came here was two years ago, and before my first race in Formula 3000 we tried to organise a test here, in any car, just to learn the track - there was a chance to drive a 3000 car but it unfortunately didn't happen. I qualified seventh and I finished sixth and in the points, so it was a pretty good result. My teammate Tomas Enge actually won the race, and it there and then that the famous doping test – which lead to Enge losing his title - happened; four of us were tested then, including me.

Immediately after the race, as I jumped out of the car in parc ferme, a guy came up to me and handed me a paper saying I was obliged to do a drug test, and then he would not let go of me. I had to go straight to the medical centre, with him accompanying me just to make sure I didn't do anything on the way there, and I had to give them a urine sample.

This happens in Formula One as well; in fact, in Hockenheim a guy came up to me and said "Christian Klien" and handed me a paper - I pulled my race suit belt out to show him and said "no, I'm Bjorn Wirdheim actually!" So I know Christian did it, and they are done pretty regularly. In Formula 3000 they do it at least once a year, but in Formula One they test us even more often.

I don't really think there is any substance that could actually help your results, really; I heard once that some snooker players take beta blockers to sharpen their ability to focus, but I don't really know if that is true or not. I also don't really know what happened with Tomas - he told me that he didn't take anything and that he maybe inhaled it passively or ate it by mistake. If you're looking to increase your performance then certainly cannabis is not a clever thing to take!

But anyway, last year was a lot better for us in Hungary than that year before. I did have my worst qualifying of the year in fifth; at the time I had already won the Championship, and I guess I was relaxing a little bit too much in qualifying! But I fought through the grid and finished second; it was the first race where they introduced the pitstops, and it certainly worked out for us.

This weekend, back in Formula One, we ran a pretty normal programme. I used Mark's engine from Hockenheim in the morning and Christian's engine in the afternoon, and the third drivers were all sent out first thing in the first session. I think they did a really good job cleaning the circuit before the weekend, because normally it is very dusty and the tarmac is slippery here, especially if you go off line. I took a walk around the circuit with Mark on Wednesday, and you could see they'd done a really good job cleaning the circuit – you could actually see the brush marks on the tarmac.

In the morning I was just getting used to the circuit, and we were carrying out some tests on engine braking and traction control, and just trying to get the diff to work properly; we managed to sort that out pretty quickly, and I was really happy with the car. In the second session I didn't make any changes to it at all, and just carried out the programme and looked at the comparison between tyres, just like normal.

I did have one problem, though. At the end of the first session I flat spotted my right front tyre coming into the first corner; on new tyres you can usually brake a little bit later because you usually have that extra grip, and I tried to brake a little bit later than I usually do and hit a bump, locking up the right front wheel.. I did the same thing at the end of the second session, and the vibration was so bad that I could hardly see the circuit in front of me!

Mark also did the same thing in his first qualifying session; over the weekend I saw a lot of drivers flat spot their tyres, so it was a real problem. Even Michael Schumacher did it at the first corner. But because Mark locked up in first qualifying he was a bit cautious in second qualifying - you can't afford to flat spot the tyres that you're going to race on, and that's why he was a bit slower in the first sector. I think he lost about three or four tenths in the first sector, which was a shame.

It's amazing how much of a difference flat spotted tyres make. Normally, you don't lock up the wheels under initial braking because you've got so much downforce on the car, and so much grip on the tyres, that no matter how hard you push on the brakes you won't lock them up unless they're unloaded, and they only get unloaded when you hit a bump. I was quite surprised when it happened; it's only happened to me once before, and it was in really hot conditions at the Norisring qualifying for a Formula 3 race; I flat spotted a tyre there and I was in a big mess because it was the set of tyres I was going to race with in the two races.

It probably would have been helped a bit if I'd pushed a little harder on my out lap, to generate more heat in my front tyres, but at the same time you want to save the rear tyres so you don't want to push too hard, and you don't want to waste the new tyres on the out lap. It's a fine balance. When I exited the corner, I realised the right front wheel was flat spotted because the steering wheel was vibrating - in fact the whole car was vibrating - so I decided to abort the run because I wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway.

You do get a lot of vibration when you drive the car normally, but it's not that bad - it's not any worse than any other race car. But when you flat spot a tyre it's bad - at the end of the first session it wasn't too bad; it was vibrating a lot, but at the end of the second session my helmet was actually vibrating, and my vision was blurred because I was vibrating so much!

But apart from that it was a good day for me; I was pleased with my performance - five tenths from Mark and half a second quicker than Christian - and I believe we got some really valuable data from that test, which I'm sure will be really useful in the future.

Unfortunately, I think when we came here everyone thought we had a good chance, especially after Jaguar qualified so well at Budapest last year, and the Michelin tyres were expected to suit the circuit. But on Saturday I saw Michael Schumacher on the seventh lap of his run doing 1:20 laps when everyone else was doing 1:22s, which was incredible. They must have been doing something right, because normally you have your fast lap on the first lap and then there is a drop off, but he was going quicker and quicker. It is pretty hard to fight against that, but Spa is next and it's a great circuit, so we'll see if the things we found help us there.

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.