Caterham test driver Alexander Rossi will become the first American to participate in a Grand Prix weekend in almost five years when he replaces Heikki Kovalainen in next Friday’s opening practice session in Spain. Rossi, a veteran of single-seater series including GP2 and GP3, made his last F1 appearance for the team in November’s young driver test in Abu Dhabi and this year is competing in Formula Renault 3.5

Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, venue for next weekend’s Formula 1 Gran Premio de España Santander 2012, is one of the most complete tests of a Formula One car and driver. But after their three-day, in-season test at Mugello, do the teams and drivers feel ready for the challenge?

Lotus’s Romain Grosjean topped the timesheets for the second successive day, as in-season testing concluded at Mugello on Thursday. Grosjean’s lap of 1m 21.035 was a quarter of a second quicker than the best time posted by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

Codemasters have invited players to join F1 Online: The Game’s closed beta by registering at www.F1OnlineTheGame.com and revealed new details on the management side of the game. F1 Online: The Game is a new free-to-play racing and management game in production at Codemasters Studios under exclusive worldwide agreement with Formula One World Championship Limited and will feature all the cars, stars and circuits from the 2011 FIA Formula One World Championship

After the wet and wild weather on the opening day at Mugello, Wednesday was a much calmer affair and, with the Italian track basking in sunshine, the teams were intent on exploiting the much drier conditions. Romain Grosjean set the pace for Lotus with a lap of 1m 21.603s, although right at the end of the session Kamui Kobayashi clocked exactly the same time for Sauber.

General Electric is one of the world’s mightiest industrial conglomerates, and thanks to its sponsorship of the Caterham team, a Formula One minnow can now call on this awesome technical powerbase. The relationship won’t be entirely one way, however

Whilst his cohorts testing in Mugello dodged the showers, McLaren’s Jenson Button enjoyed the sunshine in Budapest for his demonstration run on Tuesday.

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

Red Bull have announced that they will field an innovative livery, for one race only, at July’s British Grand Prix.

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