After a break of over three years, Formula 1 returned to the Mugello Circuit, to be met by a large crowd – over fifteen thousand filled the paddock, the grandstands and the trackside areas, despite the less than favourable weather. Eleven teams were present for the start of the final available test session of 2012.

Fernando Alonso took to the track for Scuderia Ferrari. The Spaniard's programme for the day included development of new components and increasing the understanding of the behaviour of the tyres. Unfortunately, the track conditions, with only a small window of dry time in the late morning, required a drastic revision of the programme. The afternoon was particularly limited, when the only work carried out was some practice starts. At the end of the day a total of 46 laps had been completed, the quickest in a time of 1.22.444, which was the fastest outright.

Caterham F1 Team has confirmed that Rodolfo Gonzalez will be joining race drivers Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen at the fourth official test of the 2012 F1 season, taking place at Mugello, Italy from 1st to 3rd May 2012.

Gonzalez, currently competing with Caterham Racing in the 2012 GP2 series, will be in the car on 1st May. Vitaly Petrov will take over on 2nd May and Heikki Kovalainen on 3rd May.

The Sahara Force India F1 Team Academy stepped up a gear this month as the team's three young Indian racers, Arjun Maini, Tarun Reddy and Jehan Daruvala began their European karting careers. The three youngsters are competing in the British Super One Championship, Britain's premier kart championship incorporating the KF3 Class MSA British Championships for juniors.

KF3 is an international CIK class using a medium power 125cc water-cooled engine with an electric self-starter and centrifugal clutch. With a standard chassis, single rear brake and bodywork, the karts are capable of producing speeds of up to 115km/h. It's the ideal proving ground for aspiring racers and has helped produce numerous Formula One stars, including current Sahara Force India racer, Paul Di Resta.

Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean danced their way through the Bahrain desert for a double-podium performance in today’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Kimi took advantage of saved sets of new tyres from qualifying to vault from eleventh to second, whilst Romain scored an equally impressive seventh to third.

Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations: "We've been saying over the last few races that podium finishes were on their way and today we've proved that. To come from eleventh to score a strong second, challenging for the win was an awesome performance from Kimi and shows that the E20 is a superb race car. For Romain to match Kimi's pace and finish just seven seconds behind him despite having fewer new tyres is a comparably impressive performance. Our race strategy calls today were not as tricky as we've seen in other races. We knew we had to make three stops and it became clear as the race went on that our main question was could we beat Sebastian (Vettel)? We gave it a good go. It wasn't a perfect performance this weekend - we weren't happy with our performance on the soft tyres in qualifying – but it's clear we have a car which has the pace to win races. "

Paul Di Resta delivered a superb performance in today’s Bahrain Grand Prix to finish in sixth place as he maximised an opportunistic two-stop strategy. Di Resta briefly led the race while some of the front runners pitted, and held off a late challenge from Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton to ensure that he walked away with sixth place despite detiriorating tyres. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg completed the race in P12.

Paul: "The result today is massive for us. The team did an amazing job all weekend, the strategy came together and the pit-stops were perfect. We knew it would be a big ask to make only two stops and it was a close run thing at the end because my tyres completely went away on the final lap. I had Fernando [Alonso] very close behind me, but I saved a bit of KERS coming out of the final corner and managed to stay ahead. Apart from that, the car has been awesome. So we go away from here as a very happy team with a few weeks to reflect on things and determined to arrive in Barcelona in fighting form."

In a continued show of solid progression, Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan posted his best result of the season for the HRT F1 team by finishing in 21st place, while the Spanish squad once again managed to get both cars past the chequered flag with gap to the front runners and immediate rivals further reduced. Karthikeyan started 24th on the grid, and after an average start endured a difficult first stint on full tanks.

"The start was ok but the track was really dusty and I took too much out of the tyres and lost time to the guys ahead. As a result I had to pit early and we decided to try something different strategy-wise – a four-stop race instead of the three-stopper that most others went with."