Barca hosts another big circus as FI hits town for what the drivers say is the toughest of all tracks

All the big cars arrive at the Catalyuna racecourse for the Spanish Grand Prix with improvements in testing. This could be the one that sets the tone for the rest of the season.. Ferrari arrive with a new nose cone with a hole in the centre. But championship leader Kimi Raikkonen rates this the toughest of tracks: "Barcelona is one of the most difficult circuits for cars, then after here it's Turkey and Monaco, and it can be a different story again," he said.BMW technical director Willy Rampf has said this will be the race that reveals the true running order in F1. But his driver Robert Kubica was especially optimistic about his chances.

Lewis Hamilton expects his McLaren package to be strong . "It's always difficult to predict these things as all the teams are continuously progressing. Winter testing there was positive and this week we have covered a good amount of laps. I feel we have a competitive package at the track; the car seems to work quite well. We have a range of new components coming on board for this race which we tested this week and had some positive results, but we are not alone in doing this! The Circuit de Catalunya is a great track; we can't ever lose it from the calendar. It always sees competitive racing and there are so many enthusiastic fans there all the time which makes for a great atmosphere."

Last week’s trails ended in a torrential downpour. Red Bull’s Mark Webber took advantage of these rare moments to try out some new aero parts on the RB4, setting a best time of 1m21.953s which was over a second and a half faster than McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen.