Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso topped the timesheets on Tuesday, after a wet first day of testing at Mugello. Alonso was the only driver to go quicker than 1m 23s at the Italian track, clocking a lap of 1m 22.444s during a brief hiatus between showers in the morning

A collection of paintings signed by Formula One drivers is currently being auctioned online by the Indian race organisers to raise funds for charity. The artworks, painted by underprivileged Indian children, were on display at the Buddh International Circuit during October’s inaugural New Delhi round. The ‘unknown artists’ initiative by the Jaypee Group saw the creation of around 180 paintings by 152 children, who were picked from ten schools in the local area

McLaren’s commitment to carbon reduction and environmental efficiency has received further recognition with a silver medal at the 2012 Edison Awards, held at a glittering ceremony in New York last week. McLaren, who have already earned official carbon-neutral status after achieving annual savings of over 1,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions, were nominated in the prestigious Green Implementation category

McLaren’s Jenson Button will drive through the heart of Budapest on Tuesday. Button will be in action on a specially-constructed 1.6-kilometre street course in the Hungarian capital as part of the ‘Raise Your Game Weekend’ event, which has been arranged by McLaren’s title sponsors Vodafone.

Sauber have announced a ground-breaking new partnership with British Premier League football club Chelsea FC. At the recent Chinese and Bahrain rounds the Saubers included the mysterious inscriptions ‘Out of the Blue’ and ‘True Blue’ on their engine covers to pique interest, but from next month’s Spanish event the club’s official logo – in the team’s distinctive blue – will have pride of place on the C31s. “A partnership like this between Formula One and football has never existed before in this form, yet there are numerous commonalities and possible synergies,” explained Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn

Red Bull may have bounced back to their winning ways in Bahrain but there was another success story from Sakhir, courtesy of Force India’s Paul di Resta. Despite high tyre wear at the circuit, Di Resta excelled after brilliantly exploiting his brave two-stop strategy to record the team’s highest finish so far this year with sixth place. The young Scot was the only driver to resist the call of a third pit stop and, although he started to struggle on his final set of rubber with over 10 laps to go before the finish line, he managed to stay ahead of the chasing Ferrari of Fernando Alonso, with some shrewd KERS usage.

F1 in Schools, the Formula One technology challenge, has enlisted Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn as the global educational initiative’s latest, high profile patron. Kaltenborn joins an impressive roll call of F1 names which includes McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey, Caterham’s technical head Mike Gascoyne

As part of its latest investigation into improved cockpit protection in open-wheel racing, the FIA Institute has been testing the safety benefits of a forward roll-hoop. An experimental titanium roll-over hoop and support bracket supplied by the Lotus Formula One team was impact tested by a 20kg F1 wheel and tyre assembly fired at high speed from a compressed-nitrogen powered cannon

Williams’ reserve driver Valtteri Bottas will test for the British team on the opening day of next week’s Mugello session. Bottas will take to the Italian track on Tuesday, whilst Bruno Senna and Pastor Maldonado will be in action on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will join their DTM counterparts at the German touring car series’ season opener this weekend. Rosberg will demonstrate a 1955 Mercedes-Benz W196 on Saturday at Hockenheim, whilst Schumacher will drive the team’s 2011 car on Sunday.