Jenson won the Breakthrough of the Year Award, which recognised his achievement in taking his first world championship against considerable odds. Other nominees included multiple Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish, diver Tom Daley, US Open tennis winner Juan Martin del Potro, South Korean golfer Ji Yai Shin and the German football team VFL Wolfsburg.

“Last year was eventful but I have many happy memories,” says Jenson. “At the time I wasn’t thinking about the rewards, I was just tackling each challenge as it came. I’m honoured to have been given this award, and it comes at a very appropriate time as I face the fresh challenges of a new F1 season.”

The 28-year-old Brazilian, who spent much of the final Barcelona test day running with a heavy fuel load, finished third quickest today.

Ferrari has been strong at all the pre-season tests – topping all three days at Valencia at the start of the month and regularly setting a strong pace on long runs. But Massa pointed to the narrow margins at the test today: eight cars were within half a second of Lewis Hamilton’s fastest lap for McLaren.

“I’m satisfied with the whole of testing, not just Barcelona,” said Massa. “Valencia and Jerez too – we did what we wanted to do, but it looks like it will be a very tough and competitive championship.

“We never expected to have an advantage and to go to the first race and win in an easy way, definitely not. We expect to have a competitive car, and this I think we have done. The car is reliable, but also consistent, and that is what we want to start the season.

“We are not here to be the champions of the pre-season. We are here to work on the car, to try to have a good championship and fighting for the championship.”

Massa also says that he is working extremely well with new team-mate Fernando Alonso, who has already claimed the F10 is the best F1 machine he has ever driven.

“My relationship is good with everybody,” said Massa. “I never had any problems with team-mates.

“I’m 100 per cent sure that I will never have a problem with Fernando. We work well together, and that’s what’s important.

“He is intelligent and knows that what is important to the team is to have a great car. I know that as well, so we are working very well in a good direction.”

In a press release issued on Sunday, the team said it wanted to reconfirm its ability to race in the 2010 season, despite not yet having an entry.

Stefan GP is expected to unveil its first F1 car to the press this week and, as revealed by infomotosport, former world champion Jacques Villeneuve will have a seat fitting at its Cologne factory tomorrow.

The Serbian team is set to have its second car ready this week, having already sent equipment to Bahrain in case it is allowed to race in Bahrain.

Zoran Stefanovic’s squad is hoping to secure an entry if it is confirmed that the US F1 team is unable to race this year.

“SGP would like to re-confirm its desire and, importantly, its ability to compete in the whole of the FIA 2010 F1 World Championship,” said the team in the statement.

“It recognises that this can only happen with the consent of the FIA and the FOM, but we have faith that the F1 ‘family’ will make the correct decision in the end.

“There will be no more press releases on this subject and we look forward to being allowed to show everyone our team in Bahrain.”

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher hinted yesterday that the W01 was more competitive than he initially thought. Team boss Brawn agrees the car is good, but believes it is currently not the best.

Talking after most of the top teams had recorded laps within a few tenths of each other on the last day of testing in Barcelona, Brawn said: “I think we’re close enough to have a go, but we’re not enjoying the situation we had last year. I don’t think anybody is.

“At the beginning of testing it looked like Ferrari were dominant, and now you’d have to say that the teams are all pretty close based on this test.”

Brawn added that he hoped improvements prior to the season opener in Bahrain will allow Schumacher and team-mate Nico Rosberg to challenge near the front.

“We’re just a little bit off where we want to be, but I think we’re close enough to be within reach,” he said. “We have a new package for Bahrain and I hope that’s going to make the difference.”

With the leading teams all spending their morning running through some low-fuel qualifying simulations, it offered a proper glimpse of the current competitive order – and it was Hamilton who eventually emerged on top shortly before the lunch break.

Getting his first experience of the raft of updates that McLaren had brought onto its MP4-25 for this week’s test, Hamilton’s best effort of 1m20.472 seconds was just six hundredths of a second quicker than Felipe Massa in the Ferrari.

Hamilton’s time came on the fourth lap of a run and it offered the first hint of the week that McLaren may have the pace to take the fight to Ferrari at the start of the season.

Massa completed his own qualifying simulations, setting his benchmark 1m20.539s on the second flying lap of a run before switching his programme over to race simulation work.

Red Bull Racing had handed Sebastian Vettel another morning of running in the RB6 following the frustrations of Saturday – when a technical issue and bad weather hampered his day’s work – as he set the third quickest time of the day on the second lap of a four lap run.

Vettel, whose best lap of 1m20.667s was just 0.128 seconds behind Massa, then switched over to some race preparation work before the lunch break – when the car will be readied for Mark Webber to finish his pre-season running.

Michael Schumacher was another driver spending most of the morning working through low fuel runs to set his best time of 1m20.745s – leaving himself 0.273s off Hamilton’s best effort.

Rubens Barrichello continued to show that Williams was ready to mix with the four pre-season favourites as his own qualifying simulation work left him less than two tenths behind Schumacher with a best lap of 1m20.925s.

The Brazilian did cause one of the two red flags of the morning, however, when he spun off at Turn 4 early on.

Behind Barrichello, the other teams spent their mornings focusing on more race-type set-up work, with more than a one second gap back to Sebastien Buemi in the Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Seventh fastest Kamui Kobayashi caused a red flag shortly after 11am when he stopped on track at Turn 9, while behind him Adrian Sutil carried out race simulation work for Force India.

In the battle of the new teams, Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen ended up 1.5s quicker than Lucas di Grassi – who completed 35 laps during an encouraging morning of improved reliability for Virgin Racing.

Pos  Driver              Team         Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren      1m20.472s            53
 2.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari      1m20.539s  + 0.067s  55
 3.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull     1m20.667s  + 0.195s  76
 4.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes     1m20.745s  + 0.273s  55
 5.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams     1m20.925s  + 0.453s  40
 6.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso   1m22.135s  + 1.663s  46
 7.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber       1m22.713s  + 2.241s  32
 8.  Adrian Sutil        Force India  1m23.079s  + 2.607s  60
 9.  Robert Kubica       Renault      1m24.293s  + 3.821s  35
10.  Heikki Kovalainen   Lotus        1m25.251s  + 4.779s  58
11.  Lucas di Grassi     Virgin       1m26.790s  + 6.318s  35

Williams has spent much of the winter doing long runs and proving its reliability, but Nico Hulkenberg was quickest on Friday at Barcelona – and Barrichello thinks that performance has changed perceptions of their team.

“I think Nico’s time on Friday was the very first time we tried low fuel in the car, and we surprised a few people, so all of a sudden Williams is being talked about in the paddock,” he said.

“This winter it was very, very easy to become the hero of the winter test. If I took fuel out at every test I would’ve been first at every test, but would that have taught me what I now know from the car? I don’t think so.”

Thought reluctant to predict where Williams would be in the pecking order, Barrichello is confident that the team has gained ground during testing.

“We have improved – we can only say for ourselves – but we have improved a good second from Valencia,” he said.

“We feel competitive, but I think Williams-Cosworth can be one of the teams to surprise people this year. But like I said it’s really, really difficult and I’m just keeping myself very clear, my feet on the ground, and just working as hard as I can. But I feel the car is on a competitive level.”

He is also certain that Williams is in great shape reliability-wise.

“The main topic of the first three tests, at Valencia, Jerez and Jerez, was to absolutely nail reliability – and we have done that very, very, very well,” Barrichello said.

Though the world champion ended the third day of the Barcelona test third fastest, 0.7s away from Nico Rosberg’s ultimate pace, he was delighted by his McLaren’s long-run pace in a full race simulation despite tricky weather conditions.

“Our race run was great,” he said. “We didn’t get any red flags until the last couple of laps of the last stint, so the boys did a great job with reliability, but also with pit stops.

“We went from having high fuel in the car to going out and doing some low fuel runs, and it is very difficult because you haven’t done any set-up work. The day was too short for me really. I would rather have another day of testing.

“I know what I would do to the car to improve it, and hopefully Lewis [Hamilton] will be testing a few things that will be useful tomorrow.

“Because out of the box, with a new package, to be as consistent as we are and the pace we have, I am happy. I don’t think we are at our maximum yet, but we will do our best tomorrow to get the maximum out of the car.”

Button also expressed his conviction that there is much more to come from the 2010 package.

“This is all still very new, the actual car that we are driving now,” he said. “We will see tomorrow, with a few set-up changes. I think the set-up changes that the team are thinking about could help us quite a bit tomorrow – and help the balance of the car.

“Our long run pace – I am happy with. There is still room for improvement. We are not getting the best out of the package we have and that is what we have to do tomorrow.

“I think it is just more time with this car – with this update on the car. More mileage, because it is a good update. It is a good amount. But it is just getting the best out of it, and we are not yet. We haven’t done enough laps and enough set-up work.”

Button added that he believed it was still difficult to predict the form ahead of the season opener, but said he expected some surprises given how close the field looks in testing.

“I think that if you look at the times today, the long runs, the Ferrari is competitive but we all knew that,” he said. “Others, I don’t really know about. It is difficult. I think the Sauber is going to surprise a few people, I think it is quicker than most people think and I think they will be up there at the first race.

“So, there could be five or six teams who are competitive and it is still all a bit of a guessing game at the moment and it will be until we qualify on Saturday in Bahrain.

“That is exciting I think. It is great for the sport, and I think it is exciting for the fans of F1 and all of us involved, because we don’t really know what is going to happen.”

Team boss Zoran Stefanovic has said that the 1997 world champion is close to a deal with the Serbian squad, which continues to push for a place in the 2010 Formula 1 field.

Stefan has already announced Kazuki Nakajima as its first driver, and is also believed to be poised to sign GP2 race winner Pastor Maldonado as its reserve.

The team’s second car is scheduled for completion on Tuesday, and it is understood to be planning a media launch on Wednesday in a location close to its Cologne facility. Although Bridgestone has so far declined to release tyres to Stefan, forcing it to abandon plans to test at Portimao this week, the team is thought to have decided that Avon tyres would be suitable for the launch and a shakedown.

Stefanovic has also revealed that he had discussed a merger with US F1 – which has a 2010 entry but has asked to miss the first four races as its programme is a long way behind schedule. He said these talks had now collapsed despite positive approaches from US F1 investor Chad Hurley.

“Yes, it is true we had some discussions stretching over many days, but these broke down completely on Thursday afternoon European time due to the inflexibility of certain players,” Stefanovic said.

“I stress it was not Chad Hurley, who was open to discussions with us, but some of the other stakeholders who sabotaged the talks.”

The Italian had his final day of pre-season testing in the T127 at Barcelona today, where his best time was 4.3 seconds down on the pace set by Nico Rosberg.

While he was pleased to log over 100 laps after experiencing some reliability problems on Friday, the 35-year-old admitted that he expects to be at the back of the grid when the season gets underway.

“We cannot be happy about the pace, but this is what we have at the moment so we have to deal with it,” Trulli told infomotosport. “We have a lot of work to do.

“We are short on time and everything had to be hurried up to get the car ready for testing and for Bahrain, so we can’t really ask for any more from the team.

“We are ready to race, but I can’t say we are ready to fight. Maybe with Virgin, but the rest are out of reach at the moment.”

Trulli expects the situation to remain the same for the first four races of the season, but he took heart from being able to complete a race simulation today.

“Once we are back in Europe it will be better,” he added. “The reliability is ok, so we should be fine. I’m pretty happy with these two days, it was good to put some mileage on the car.

“We are here to discover the problems we have and we know we are lacking in some areas, but there is little we can do now. Things will come later.”

The German was fastest in today’s Barcelona test, and ended the day extremely upbeat about his car.

“I think in general there’s no absolute weakness with the car at the moment,” said Rosberg.

“We just need to nail the set-up a little bit better to really extract the maximum potential from the car, which I think we’re not quite doing yet. We’re close and maybe tomorrow we can make another step in the right direction.”

Mercedes has already promised a significant aerodynamic upgrade for the season-opener, which Rosberg hopes will be the final improvement required to get the team to the front.

“We have some upgrades here, but the big package is coming for Bahrain – and it’s going to be a big package,” he said.

“But I’m sure everybody else has similar big steps, and then we just have to see where we are.”

The German added that he would head for Bahrain feeling very confident and at home in his new team and car. He will hand the MGP W01 over to team-mate Michael Schumacher for tomorrow’s final session of the winter.

“It’s still early days so I’m very optimistic at the moment,” Rosberg said. “That’s my attitude and how I’m pushing forward, and I think today has been a good day for us.

“To repeat, it’s difficult to say where you are at the moment, but I feel very confident in the car, very comfortable, which is a nice feeling for myself – I can really attack and it feels good to drive.”

The German’s best lap of 1m20.686s from the morning, set before rain disrupted the action for a couple of hours, was enough to keep him at the top of the timesheets ahead of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso.

Both drivers switched from short runs to long runs in the afternoon, and both suffered technical problems that forced them to stop on track. Rosberg stopped in the closing stages of a race simulation, while Buemi ran out of fuel a couple of laps into a run that came after his own race simulation had been completed.

The red flag for the Toro Rosso left the teams with less than 20 minutes to work with at the end of the day, and several of them opted to try some short runs, leading to plenty of changes to the leaderboard in the closing stages.

World champion Jenson Button jumped up to third late on, having spent most of his day working on race simulation in the McLaren.

Rubens Barrichello was another to focus on long runs in the afternoon, but he then improved to dip into the 1m21s at the end of the day, before the Williams brought an end to the day’s action when it stopped just before Turn 7.

Felipe Massa also worked on long runs for most of the day, and the fifth-placed Ferrari driver’s best time came in his final stint of a race simulation, shortly after he stopped for fresh tyres.

Some qualifying runs for Vitaly Petrov moved Renault closer to the pace than it has been so far this test in sixth, while Adrian Sutil was seventh for Force India.

Sebastian Vettel finished the day in eighth place having only notched up 51 laps by the end of proceedings. The Red Bull driver hardly ran at all in the morning, but did three runs of nine or 10 laps in the afternoon, with his final outing yielding his best time.

Jarno Trulli completed over 100 laps for Lotus on his way to ninth quickest, while Kamui Kobayashi’s focus on long runs meant that the Sauber driver did not set any spectacular times and was classified 10th.

Virgin ended a difficult day with the slowest time, but after hardly setting a lap time all day Timo Glock at least managed to get close to the pace with a late run.

Pos  Driver              Team         Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes     1m20.686s            128
 2.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso   1m21.413s  + 0.727s  106
 3.  Jenson Button       McLaren      1m21.450s  + 0.764s  105
 4.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams     1m21.975s  + 1.289s  101
 5.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari      1m22.344s  + 1.658s  115
 6.  Vitaly Petrov       Renault      1m22.523s  + 1.837s  68
 7.  Adrian Sutil        Force India  1m22.606s  + 1.920s  61
 8.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull     1m23.123s  + 2.437s  51
 9.  Jarno Trulli        Lotus        1m25.059s  + 4.373s  102
10.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber       1m26.216s  + 5.530s  105
11.  Timo Glock          Virgin       1m26.305s  + 5.619s  31

The teams introduced a ban on in-season testing at the beginning of last year and agreed to a combined four-test pre-season schedule in 2010 in order to further reduce costs.

Schumacher, returning to the sport as a race driver with Mercedes, after a three-year break, said that the advances teams have made in development has reduced the need for huge testing programmes.

“Honestly the analysis and the efficiency of how the team can operate with all the new technology that has developed in the last three years has allowed me to reduce test time quite a lot,” he said. “I don’t think it is necessary to do as we did in 2005, almost 100,000km of testing – which by the way didn’t bring us almost anything.

“Here I don’t know how many we have done, five maybe 10,000km, and we have achieved much more.”

Schumacher added that the ban on in-season testing had made a return to the sport, with a less-hectic schedule, far more appealing.

“The 19 races that I do this year will involve much less travelling and days away from home than I used to do,” he said. “I used to do the race, then I would be one or two days at home, then I would be testing for three or four days, then I would be home for a day, then I would be off again.

“This was much more regular than it is now.

“Now you have 19 events but you can organise yourself very easily. I think in the end I have a better balance now than I did in the past. It is probably part of the reason why I feel happy to make a comeback.”

Schumacher added however that he shared the frustration of his rivals at the poor weather that has hampered the last three tests at Jerez and Barcelona.

“I think none of us have honestly, with the rain and the bad weather in Jerez, none of us has [had enough running]. And unfortunately today, again, we are losing very important track time,” he said. “Although it might rain occasionally during the year, for the development of the car you would prefer to have consistent circumstances.”

Schumacher said on Friday that he did not expect the team to be in a position to win races early in the year, but changed his mind on Saturday after analysing the data in more detail.

Speaking on Saturday afternoon, Schumacher said: “Yesterday I was a little bit pessimistic before I studied the data. I mentioned it after not having studied the data, afterwards it looks much more reasonable than I thought.

“This was just initial feeling, but it looks like maybe we were running more fuel than others yesterday and that’s why the time didn’t look so good. Looking at the results and the data, it looks very reasonable – not too bad.”

But the seven-time world champion stopped short of predicting wins.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “But it is important to see what happens by the end of the season and not by the beginning. We have to be within fighting distance. If we are not in a position to win the first races, I wouldn’t worry at all. If we are two seconds off the pace, then okay maybe we start to worry – but I don’t think that is the case.”

When asked who he thinks is favourite in 2010, Schumacher said: “I think Felipe and Fernando at the moment look the target.

“They have been doing very good testing and things look good. I know the team so I know there are good reasons to be happy. I am not surprised,

“[But] I don’t know who has played all their cards yet. Even with my experience I really struggle. There are several teams that look very competitive.”

Although the day started off dry, and Rosberg was able to complete a series of low fuel short runs to set a best time of 1m20.686s on his final effort, everyone’s programme at Barcelona was hit as rain soaked the track shortly before 11am.

Rosberg’s short runs offered the first glimpse of the ultimate pace of his Mercedes GP car, with the team having so far limited its running to longer stints during this week’s preparations.

The 1m20.686s was just a few hundredths slower than Fernando Alonso’s benchmark effort for Ferrari from Friday, when he set a best lap of 1m20.637s during his low fuel runs prior to focusing on a race simulation.

Rosberg switched his programme onto longer runs once it became clear that track conditions would not improve.

All the best times of the morning were set before the rain fell, with second fastest Sebastien Buemi in the Scuderia Toro Rosso laying down his 1m21.413s during morning qualifying simulation work.

Adrian Sutil was third fastest for Force India with a best time of 1m22.951s, ahead of Felipe Massa in the Ferrari and Rubens Barrichello in the Williams – who spun off in the wet at Turn 5 at one point in the tricky damp conditions.

Both Jarno Trulli and Kamui Kobayashi worked their way through race simulation work, despite the damp conditions, while Jenson Button had a frustrating morning – stopping on track on his installation lap with the updated McLaren and then not running when the track was at its best.

Neither Timo Glock nor Sebastian Vettel completed flying laps as the conditions hit their programmes too.

Pos  Driver              Team         Time       Gap        Laps
 1.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes     1m20.686s             56
 2.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso   1m21.413s  + 0.727s   21
 3.  Adrian Sutil        Force India  1m22.951s  + 2.265s   22
 4.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari      1m23.490s  + 2.804s   37
 5.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams     1m23.976s  + 3.290s   40
 6.  Jarno Trulli        Lotus        1m25.059s  + 4.373s   61
 7.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber       1m26.216s  + 5.530s   77
 8.  Vitaly Petrov       Renault      1m26.346s  + 5.660s   23
 9.  Jenson Button       McLaren      1m36.667s  + 15.981s  21