Testing times -- what goes on during the season's longest break?

By James Snodgrass for CNN

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- It's over three weeks since the Bahrain Grand Prix, and a few days to go until the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona -- the longest break between races for over five years. So what exactly have the teams been up to in this time?

The most prominent activity during this time has been testing, carried out on the Circuit de Catalunya, venue for next weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. Testing was carried out between Monday April 30 and Wednesday May 2 (with an extra day on the Thursday because torrential rain hindered Tuesday's proceedings).

It's not easy to predict results from testing because it isn't always clear precisely what components each constructor is testing, and what they hope to achieve from the tests. What they are not doing is putting in practice laps for the next grand prix. And this is clear from the results.

The fastest lap on the first day's testing was put in by Toyota's Ralf Schumacher, a constructor and a driver who have failed to make an impression this season. Tuesday was Kimi Raikkonen's turn to shine in the Ferrari. On the Wednesday his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa put in the fastest time. And Thursday, which saw yet more rain, saw old-hand David Coulthard put in the fastest lap in his Red Bull.

"It's difficult to tell who will come out on top from tests," agreed Spyker F1's chief engineer, Dominic Harlow, "because different teams run different set-ups to test different items, but you can tell who will be fast."

Not all these items are obvious. But Honda and McLaren tried out some outlandish -- and very obvious -- aerodynamic improvements. In McLaren's case this was a third front wing, riding above the nose like the bridge of a pair of spectacles. For Honda it was the frankly bizarre-looking protuberances that many commentators have dubbed "elephants' ears".

Admitting that the Barcelona tests were not as productive as the team might have hoped, an AT&T Williams spokesperson explained, "Test sessions are an invaluable part of our preparation work for the Grand Prix as it allows the team time to transfer the parts that have been run in the wind tunnel on to the race track and ensure the data correlates."

For the drivers it's something of a different story. Not all the racing drivers were present during testing. Rising star Lewis Hamilton, for instance, was notable by his absence -- with the testing duties passed to McLaren Mercedes test driver Pedro de la Rosa.

AT&T Williams' spokesperson described its drivers' movements: "Invariably they return home. Our drivers [Alexander Wurz and Nico Rosberg] are both based in Monaco and have spend the majority of time there. At home they'll spend time relaxing but mostly training. Nico will train for most of the day, for example.

"Nico and Alex have also had to fulfil marketing commitments for our sponsors -- Alex was the VIP guest at a day for Lenovo in Spain, while both had filming commitments with Allianz in Monaco.

"Alex also had an important personal occasion this month when he addressed the UN World Youth Assembly on road safety issues in Geneva"

Among the stranger -- if most futile -- publicity stunts of the break was Spyker's drag race against a Dutch air force fighter jet.

"We raced the car against an F16 fighter plane in Holland," said Holland, "Christijan Albers drover the car. Unfortunately we weren't quickest but we did put up a good fight."

Then there are the cars. The cars will have been air-freighted back to their respective bases within 48 hours of the checkered flag waving down over Bahrain.

From then their movements will differ, according to the budgets of the teams. The larger, richer, teams will have stripped their race cars down and the mechanics will have carried out the necessary maintenance and modifications. Meanwhile their testing teams will have been out in Barcelona, relaying information to the factory about the test cars' performance.

The smaller teams won't have had that luxury, however, and will have had to use race cars for testing. Spyker, for instance, took two of their three chassis out to Barcelona for testing, while the third stayed at the Silverstone factory being prepared for the next Grand Prix.

Four weeks without a race is a long and desolate time for Formula One's fans. But for the constructors and drivers, it's business as usual.

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