Launches of the Force India and Mercedes F1 cars may have been 24 hours and 200 metres apart at Silverstone but each in its own way summed up the standing and aspirations of the respective teams.
The halls used for both were a similar size at opposite ends of The Wing but it says much about priorities that Force India could use a smaller mezzanine floor as the media base while the weight of numbers covering the Mercedes event required extensive use of the larger lower floor.
Mercedes had a range of desks and facilities that would have done many a race track media centre proud but the fact that the Force India set up was modest by comparison is a sign of status rather than misplaced criticism.
Force India pitched it perfectly. It would have been easy, having finished fourth in 2016, to effect bravado, become self-important and talk about getting among the top three. That's the quiet hope, of course; it's what race teams are all about. But for the purposes of the car launch, Force India was a friendly affair, very much -- and they may hate me for saying this -- in the mould of Jordan Grand Prix, the genesis of the present team operating out of Eddie's original building just beyond Silverstone's front gates.
Whereas Mercedes provided an understated but substantial lunch, Force India had the equally adequate offer of food bowls and the homely touch of a mobile coffee van parked to one side of the room. It was all about socialising, key members of the team casually mingling, conducting one-to-one interviews as and when required.
Formalities were minimal, Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon pulling the wraps off the VJM10, which then remained on the stage for the rest of the afternoon. There were brief but perfectly adequate interviews (conducted by Sky Sport's Natalie Pinkham and David Croft) for the benefit of the online launch, followed by group discussions that lasted as long as needed. It would have been no surprise to see the Force India guys switching off the lights and wandering back across the road once the last journalist had gone home.
As reigning champions, Mercedes could not begin to contemplate such an informal approach. But they must have wished they could when, overnight, Storm Doris did her best to rip through plans to unveil W08 on track.
The fact that the day went precisely to the plan devised by Bradley Lord, the team's communications director, said everything about why Mercedes set the pace off the track as well as on it. There were one or two grumbles from TV people about the limited number of questions allowed but the high number of broadcasters from beyond these shores made this a major event. And, for the record, the car looked low, mean and purposeful, tweaks to the colour scheme being extremely effective.
All of that is superficial, of course. The important point is that no one knows how the latest cars will work, not only as competitive entities, but also when racing in company. The quality of the verbal responses at Silverstone, never mind the respective cappuccinos and pasta, will be meaningless if a Force India is ahead of a Mercedes on the grid in Melbourne. But the best efforts of Doris notwithstanding, it's been an interesting and fun few days.