Absent: Testing Tweeter Nico Hulkenberg

The reigning GP2 champion, who is making the step up to Formula One this year, chose to spend his days at the Spanish circuit posting updates to his Twitter page while a substitute clocked up the test mileage for the team, a source confirmed.

“Initially we were hoping that Nico would be able to update his status while out on the track,” our source told us, “but it turns out that though it’s compatible with just about everything, we couldn’t get TweetDeck to work on his steering wheel.

“It was then decided that communicating with the fans in 140 characters or less is a much more important job for a driver than testing and developing the car, so Nico was excused from his testing duties to carry on Tweeting throughout the week. His place was taken by a PR worker.”

Wearing Hulkenberg’s helmet and overalls, the unidentified tester performed admirably for the team, setting the ninth-fastest lap time of the week. Reports from Serbia suggest that Stefan GP have already approached Williams for the mystery driver’s identity, hoping to offer him a contract for their non-existent F1 team. However, our source insisted that the true identity of the driver would remain a closely guarded secret.

Meanwhile, the usual chorus of ex-drivers have chimed in to bemoan the changes at Williams: “This is a team that previously existed only to race,” former world champion Jackie Stewart said. “Now they’re focused on keeping fans happy, even at the expense of other drivers on the test circuit. This sort of travesty would never have happened while Bernie was ali….no, I’ve said too much.”

Snappy: New Williams stakeholder Toto

The wolf, who is apparently named Toto and is from Austria, will now sit on the company’s board as well as managing his own interests including other investments, and a part-time drive in the FIA GT Series and Austrian Rally Championship.

Team principal Frank Williams welcomed the move as a positive step for the team, although he did admit that it may prove difficult to obtain a paddock pass for the team’s newest member.

“Those with long memories will recall a similar association to this in the past,” Williams said, “although we can confirm that this wolf has nothing to do with the old one.

“Furthermore, they say that every dog is only two meals away from becoming a wolf,” Williams continued, “and over the last few years we’ve continually produced dogs. So this move is quite fitting, in its way.”

Toto also expressed his pleasure at having concluded the deal, barking enthusiastically as he turned to ravage a group of passing rabbits.

Toto is not the first animal to have an involvement with Formula One: Ferrari famously saw its most successful years under the leadership of an irritable toad, and Brabham was once run by a weasel, before he left to make a career on the commercial side of the sport.

This article may or may not have been based on a complete misunderstanding of last week’s F1 news.

Worried: Glove-loser Kazuki Nakajima

The Williams driver attempted to recruit the assistance of the world’s Formula One audience via his Twitter feed, where he explained that his gloves had gone missing, and he couldn’t remember where he’d last seen them. Nakajima encouraged the world to suggest where he might have left them.

Fans were initially suspicious that this was a publicity stunt – Williams sponsors Phillips launched an unconvincing Twitter feed in Nico Rosberg’s name in the run-up to the Brazilian race, claiming that the German had lost his helmet and required the help of Brazilian fans to find it. This was, of course, merely a marketing campaign, with the competition’s winner being awarded paddock passes to Interlagos.

Nakajima, however, insists that this is not the case with his gloves: “Seriously, guys,” he tweeted yesterday evening, “They’ve actually gone missing. Patrick’s going to kill me.”

Already helpful suggestions have led the Japanese driver to look down the back of his hotel bed, amongst piles of tyres in the Interlagos paddock and even to angrily accost McLaren mechanics, accusing them of stealing and photocopying his gloves in order to gain confidential information about the operation of the Williams team.

Nakajima is said to be offering a reward of two Abu Dhabi grandstand tickets for the safe return of the gloves, but reiterated that this is not a publicity stunt: “Pretty soon I’m going to have to get back in that car. If I haven’t got my gloves back by then, I’m just going to have to paint my hands blue and white, and hope for the best.”

Pointless: Nico Rosberg, practice session dominator

The team, which won nine Constructors’ world championships between 1980 and 1997, wants the FIA to introduce a “points-for-practice” system to the world championship, in which the fastest cars in each of the free practice sessions for a Grand Prix weekend receive world championship points.

“The free practice sessions are very important for the season,” team boss Frank Williams told reporters. “It only makes sense that the top runners in each session – say, the top six or eight cars – receive world championship points on a par with those given for the actual races. We have written to the FIA about this and are prepared to withdraw from F1 and start our own series if our demands are not met.”

Critics have pointed to the fact that Williams driver Nico Rosberg has topped more free practice sessions this season than any other driver, accusing the team of using the “integrity of the sport” as a cover for furthering their own interests. The team principal denied this, saying: “This is just a divisive tactic from the lunatics at the FIA designed to deny us support. We are only interested in serving the interests of fans worldwide, and not in any way concerned with making it easier for us to win the championship.”

Williams, who were expelled from the Formula One Teams’ Association for committing to racing in F1 next season, now insist that their participation is not a given: “Any agreements we have signed with the FIA can easily be retracted,” Williams insisted. “Patrick Head is revving up our lawyers as we speak.”

Outsourced: The Williams factory at Grove

The team, which has been operating from its Oxfordshire base for some years now, has been evaluating the possibility of using cheaper labour overseas to produce its Formula One cars. The aim is to use the money saved in employing workers elsewhere in the world for more research and development, hopefully giving Williams an advantage over other teams trying to extract the most from the £40 million cost cap, which will be imposed from next season.

“Obviously all the important design work will still be done by our team of experts here in Grove,” Williams engineering director Patrick Head told reporters. “But the manufacturing, assembly, evaluation of parts and so on, it’s an expensive business which can be done much cheaper outside the UK. So the natural thing to do is to see where we can get cheaper labour and save on costs.”

The outsourcing of major parts of Williams’ operation is expected to cost hundreds of British jobs, though Head is confident that it will provide work for many more people in countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. “Unemployment in these countries is so high, we’re just doing what we can to help out,” Head suggested, ignoring completely the rising unemployment in Britain.

FIA President Max Mosley has reportedly already thrown his support behind the plan, claiming that the global expansion of Formula One can only be a good thing, and congratulating Williams for their ingenuity in their solution to the problems posed by such a tight budget cap.

It is being rumoured that Williams have also threatened to “re-assign” Nico Rosberg to a position in one of the team’s new factories if his performances do not quickly improve, though these reports have yet to be confirmed.