Barcelona fourth pre-season test Test day four

Barrichello is continuing with a long run. The Williams did 10 laps, starting in 1m30.7s and stretching to 1m33.5s at the end, then pitted.

It emerged with fresh tyres and started with a 1m31.3s. Barrichello is still in mid 1m31s five laps into this next stint.

AUTOSPORT group F1 editor @nobleF1 has just popped outside. He reports that it "definitely feels chilly - not quite the T-shirt weather of Thursday."

Paul from Melbourne in Australia emails live@autosport.com to say: "I remember when Williams and Keke Ropsberg foxed everyone in the 1980s with their testing... it all looked slow,.. then come the first GP, they blew people away. Okay, maybe 'blew people away' is a slight exaggeration.

"How much foxing goes on in F1 testing these days? Are Red Bull and
Ferrari going to dominate the first set of GPs this year - as it looks like?"

AUTOSPORT deputy F1 editor @m_glendenning replies: "A question from my home town!

"'Foxing' is not really a proirity for the teams here. We haven't seen a lot of low-fuel, super-soft tyre runs yet, so when they come, they tend to stand out. That was how Sergio Perez was able to go quickest yesterday - it wasn't because Red Bull and Ferrari were sandbagging; it was because the Mexican was finishing his programme with a qualifying simulation, whereas most of the other teams were still running around working on other things.

"With some of the teams wrapping up their pre-season testing today, don't be surprised to see a few more quick runs in the last couple of hours of running this afternoon.

"And I'm not sure whether I'd say that Red Bull and Ferrari will "dominate" at Albert Park, but they certainly look set to be the two teams that everyone else will be most worried about."

Lots of people at the track following the frightening events in Japan today, and here's a Live reader who's actually there.

Lindsay emails to say: "In Tokyo having a few after-quake pints and following Live. Not great cell coverage, and after letting my girl in NZ and my family in Hawaii know I was alive, I had to see how the action in Catalunya has been.

"Good excuse today though, we had to evacuate work because of the quake(s)."

Heikki Kovalainen

Kovalainen's recent improvement to 1m23.4s came on a one-lap run, possibly a qualifying simulation.

Vettel does a 1m23.4s on his second lap of that run.

William asks live@autosport.com if we've seen any evidence that the new HRT is actually here...

Well William, they've announced a launch for 1pm so it's going to be a bit embarrassing if we all turn up and there's no car...

The motorhome is there, the trucks are there, and we've also seen Narain Karthikeyan and Tonio Liuzzi. So we'll find out in less than two hours.

Kovalainen improves at the same time with a 1m23.437s, which puts him sixth.

Vettel sets his first significant time of the day, a 1m23.012s that puts him fifth.

Flo-vis

Looks like McLaren has been running the special flo-vis aero paint on its airbox section this morning.

Sutil improves to 1m23.921s and sixth place. Vettel and Kovalainen are coming out.

Sutil brings the Force India out.

Just one car on the circuit at the moment. Barrichello seems to be on a heavy, long run now. His pace started in 1m30s and he's now onto a high 1m31s on his sixth lap.

Mark Harrison asks via live@autosport.com: "If the teams invent a new idea, like the F-duct or double defusse can they copyright it or patent it and then do the other te ams have to licence it from them?! Just wondering how the world of IP works in F1 with so many new ideas and inventions going on!"

AUTOSPORT deputy F1 editor @m_glendenning says: "Most of these ideas are not so much 'inventions' as extremely clever interpretations of the regulations. Once a team has found a tweak, other teams can and do freely apply the same interpretation if they think it is of sufficient benefit. This is how both the F-duct and the double diffuser filtered along the pitlane.

"It would be a different story if a team came up with an entirely new technology or something with commercial applications. A good example of this is the flywheel hybrid technology being developed by Williams (which is different to the battery-powered system used in its race cars)."

Renault is doing a lot of one-lap runs this morning, all in low 1m23s. Heidfeld has just done another 1m23.1s, slightly off his fastest of the day.

Alguersuari now goes up to seventh with a 1m26.014s.

Rubens Barrichello

Ed ("working hard or should that be hardly working...?") has asked if we could post a side-on picture of the Williams so he can see how reminiscent of the mid-1990s its new livery is. Here you go, Ed.

Alguersuari finally puts in his first lap of the day with a 1m27.721s.

Jag has emailed live@autosport.com to ask "do you guys believe Mercedes has made up the gap to the fronrunners with the new updates? And how is Michael Schumacher looking these days, has he got a GP win in him?"

AUTOSPORT's deputy F1 editor @m_glendenning replies: "The boring answer is that it's still too early to really say. The slightly less boring answer is that it appears that the upgrades have delivered a very real step forward, but I suspect it would be a bit optimistic to suggest that they've done enough to put the team wheel-to-wheel with Red Bull and Ferrari in Australia.

"What the developments have done is move the team forward among that gaggle of cars fighting it out to be best of the rest in terms of outright performance at the opening races. So if you're a Mercedes fan then you can probably feel confident that the team is in better shape than it looked at the last test, but the number of question marks everywhere else along pitlane makes it hard to pick who exactly they might have leapfrogged.

"And how is Michael looking these days? Fit, slightly tanned, and pretty happy, judging from his press briefing a couple of days ago. I asked Norbert Haug what sort of shape he thought he was in, and his opinion was that Schumacher is ready to go."

It's not as if everyone else has been on race fuel loads - today's top five times so far have all been on short runs.

But whatever the specification, that time will be very encouraging.

That will be a low-fuel run from Schumacher, who comes straight back into the pits.

It's half a second quicker than anyone has gone in Barcelona testing so far.

That Mercedes lap is 0.836s quicker than the time Ferrari just did.

Schumacher knocks Alonso off the head of the times with a 1m21.268s.

We've got Mercedes' Norbert Haug coming up to join us on AUTOSPORT Live this afternoon, so email your questions to live@autosport.com.

That was a single flying lap from Alonso, whose returns to the pits.

Schumacher and Heidfeld come back out.

Alguersuari comes back in without setting a time.

That's 0.129s faster than the Williams.

Alonso retakes the top spot from Barrichello with a 1m22.104s.

Alguersuari is setting off too, he hasn't set a time yet today.

Cheers from the gathering crowd in the grandstand as Alonso comes out of the pits.

Slightly faster from Kovalainen with a 1m25.587s, then a 1m25.9s on his third lap of the run.

Kovalainen improves to sixth place with a 1m25.678s.

Current lap counts: Barrichello 22, Alonso 34, Schumacher 24, Heidfeld 21, Kobayashi 24, Kovalainen 23, Button 14, Sutil 19, D'Ambrosio 17, Vettel 7, Alguersuari 2

No time yet from Alguersuari, everyone else has been out, but only a quiet seven laps of data gathering from Red Bull.

A recap two hours into the session: Barrichello is fastest ahead of Alonso, Schumacher, Heidfeld and Kobayashi.

Here's how Alonso's stint ran: 22.5, 22.9, 23.3, 24.8

And to compare to Schumacher's similar run a few minutes earlier: 22.7, 24.6, 24.6, 24.8, 25.6

Alonso again backs right off at the end of a stint.