Formula 1 Testing (Barcelona, February 25th-28th)

This week saw the final Formula 1 tests until of the year until the rookie sessions in December and it is in these tests that a slightly clearer picture is painted by the teams. While fuel weights are still an unknown, a perception is created by how long the stints are and the length of these runs say more about where a team actually is, rather than the times that are being registered.
There have lots of long runs from the top teams and short, difficult stints from Virgin and Renault. Lotus have appeared off the pace, but are making long runs work. Other than that, nothing can really be gleamed from the last few weeks. However, the value of this test has also been heightened due to the bad weather at tests over the last few weeks - one thing that may definitely not happen at Bahrain in two weeks is rain.

These are the cars that the teams will take to the flyaway races for the opening six weeks of the season, so any pace shown in Barcelona may well be shown for the first four races - right now, the only real question mark is over Campos-Meta (should they actually show up) and who knows what the hell is happening with Stefan GP (if anything is happening at all).
Props to Team Lotus' Mike Gascoyne and others, whose tweets (whether they be from Gascoyne himself or not) has given some indication of what is going on. Bear in mind though, that the teams could also be bullshitting all of us - they like to do that, dontcha know? Bring on Bahrain...

Barcelona, February 25th

1 WEBBER Red Bull 1m21.487s (109)

2 HULKENBERG Williams 1m22.407s (82)

3 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m22.514s (107)

4 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m23.144s (73)

5 BUTTON McLaren 1m23.452s (101)

6 LIUZZI Force India 1m24.064s (65)

7 ALONSO Ferrari 1m24.170s (74)

8 PETROV Renault 1m24.173s (74)

9 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m24.869s (111)

10 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m27.057s (31)

11 FAUZY Lotus 1m28.002s (76)

Barcelona, February 26th

1 HULKENBERG Williams 1m20.614s (99)

2 ALONSO Ferrari 1m20.637s (133)

3 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m20.973s (114)

4 LIUZZI Force India 1m21.056s (90)

5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m21.258s (125)

6 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m21.571s (104)

7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m21.689s (85)

8 HAMILTON McLaren 1m22.152s (93)

9 KUBICA Renault 1m24.912s (53)

10 TRULLI Lotus 1m25.524s (70)

11 GLOCK Virgin 1m25.942s (52)

Barcelona, February 27th

1 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m20.686s (128)

2 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m21.413s (106)

3 BUTTON McLaren 1m21.450s (105)

4 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m21.975s (101)

5 MASSA Ferrari 1m22.344s (115)

6 PETROV Renault 1m22.523s (68)

7 SUTIL Force India 1m22.606s (61)

8 VETTEL Red Bull 1m23.123s (51)

9 TRULLI Lotus 1m25.059s (102)

10 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m26.216s (105)

11 GLOCK Virgin 1m26.305s (31)

Barcelona, February 28th

1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m20.472s (134)

2 WEBBER Red Bull 1m20.496s (59)

3 MASSA Ferrari 1m20.539s (105)

4 SUTIL Force India 1m20.611s (99)

5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m20.667s (76)

6 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m20.745s (122)

7 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m20.870s (83)

8 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m20.911s (67)

9 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m22.135s (87)

10 KUBICA Renault 1m23.175s (106)

11 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m25.251s (65)

12 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m26.160s (47)

Leigh