The Formula 1 Blog

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was the quickest runner as pre-season testing drew to a close at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday. Hamilton clocked a best time of 1m 20.472s around the Spanish circuit and finished over two-hundredths of a second ahead of the Red Bull of Mark Webber. The British driver spent the morning fine-tuning the MP4-25's set-up and carrying out simulated qualifying runs. After lunch, he ran through a race simulation. He covered 134 laps...

After minor hydraulic issues interrupted his running on Friday, Lotus's Jarno Trulli enjoyed a much more successful day at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday, covering a total of 102 laps. Although it was a productive end to Trulli's pre-season testing, his best time in the T127 was over four seconds adrift of the pace set by quickest runner Nico Rosberg for Mercedes GP. The Italian reviews his progress and looks ahead to the Bahrain Grand Prix…

The weather made life difficult for the 11 teams testing at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday, as sporadic rain hampered their programmes at the Spanish circuit. Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg ended the day at the top of the timesheets with a best time of 1m 21.686s, which he set before the rain began to fall. Rosberg spent the morning working on qualifying simulations and developing the MGP W01's set-up, before carrying out a race simulation exercise in the afternoon...

After coming so close to clinching the title in 2009, it is clear nothing less than the world championship will do for Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel this season. After climbing out of the RB6's cockpit following testing at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Friday, Vettel evaluates his progress and the pace of his rivals…

With just over two weeks to go until the Bahrain Grand Prix, 11 teams are testing at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya this week. Mercedes GP are amongst those in action, keen to make the most of the dwindling track time left before March's Sakhir race. Although Michael Schumacher only managed to clock the seventh-fastest time in the MGP W01 on Friday, he remains confident his car won't let him down as he targets a fruitful 2010 season…

Nico Hulkenberg charged to the top of the timesheets on Friday in the Williams, as this week's four-day test continued at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya. Clocking a best lap of 1m 20.614s around the Spanish circuit, Hulkenberg's quickest time was just over two-hundredths of a second faster than that of Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. With the weather still dry and sunny, Hulkenberg was able to cover 99 laps during the course of the day. Alonso, meanwhile, completed a mammoth 133 laps...

If Thursday's Barcelona timesheets were anything to go by, Red Bull are looking very strong indeed, with Mark Webber's best time in the RB6 almost a second quicker than the rest of the field. But while Webber admits he's feeling positive, he's keen to point out the team will not be resting on their laurels just yet…

On the opening day of this week's test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg was one of the busiest drivers in action. Although he stopped out on track at one point after running out of fuel, Rosberg covered 107 laps in the MGP W01 and clocked Thursday's third-fastest time. With a major update expected ahead of the Bahrain race, the young German's confident he'll be a front runner this year…

BMW Sauber announced on Friday that they will support young driver Esteban Gutierrez this season. Eighteen year-old Gutierrez will attend a number of Grands Prix with the team and will be incorporated into the team's driver development programme, which means he'll follow the same training regime as race drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi. The Mexican enjoyed his first taste of Formula One power last year with BMW Sauber at December's young driver test. He won the 2008 Formula BMW Europe championship, after winning seven races and taking a further five podiums, and in 2009 competed in the British and European Formula Three. This year he will line up for ART in the new GP3 race series.

After their T127 endured a wet and windy test debut at Jerez last week, Lotus were back in action on Thursday at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya. With the sun shining at the Spanish track, reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy managed to complete 76 laps. Although Fauzy ended the day as the field's slowest runner, chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne is still feeling optimistic about the season ahead…