Bahrain Practice 1: Hamilton tops

Five days ago Lewis Hamilton celebrated on the top step of the Sepang podium after winning the Malaysian Grand Prix, and on the opening day of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend the Mercedes driver topped the time sheets at the end of Free Practice 1 with his teammate Nico Rosberg next best.

Hamilton’s best time of 1:37.502 was 0.231 faster than Rosberg, and almost a half second up on Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari.

There was a Keystone Cops moment at when they sent Alonso out with a Pirelli soft tyre on the front left and a medium compound tyre on the front right, when the penny dropped the Spaniard stopped in the  pit lane whereupon mechanics retrieved the F14T. A red face moment for the Reds.

At one stage during the session Mercedes powered cars hogged the top five positions on the timing screens, with Nico Hulkenberg right in there, and finishing fourth fastest when the 90 minute session was flagged. Hi teammate Sergio Perez was ninth fastest, but over a second down on his teammate.

Jenson Button was fifth fastest in the McLaren, albeit over a second down on the top time with tookie teammate Kevin Magnussen seventh fastest.

Splitting the McLaren pair was Kimi Raikkonen who set the sixth best time, which was 0.830 of a second adrift of his Ferrari teammate Alonso.

Fastest of the Renault brigade was rookie Daniil Kvyat, who ended the session eighth fastest in the Toro Rosso.

Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top ten in the Red Bull, 1.887 slower than Hamilton’s best.

Notably down the order was Daniel Ricciardo who was 14th, but a whopping three seconds adrift of the benchmark time.

And even further down the order were the Lotus duo with Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean, 16th and 19th respectively, both managing decent mileage but struggling to squeeze pace from the E22.

Reserve drivers in action on the day included: Williams’ Felipe Nasr making his free practice debut in place of Valtteri Bottas, and ended 13th fastest; Sauber’s Giedo van der Garde was 18th, in place of Esteban Gutierrez; and Caterham’s highly rated Robin Frijns, in place of Kamui Kobayashi, was 0.3secs faster than teammate Marcus Ericsson who was slowest of all.

It is early days in Bahrain and perhaps a tad too early to be making assumptions, however one can take for granted that Mercedes will be strong this weekend as they set about their business with consumate, with Ferrari appearing to be up for the chase, although Alonso in particular was really thrashing it about, as the Renault posse play catch-up again or perhaps they have yet to unleash their firepower…

Bahrain Grand Prix, Free Practice 1 – Friday, 4 April 2014

Pos    No    Driver    Team    Time    Gap    Laps
1    44    Lewis Hamilton    Mercedes    1:37.502        14
2    6    Nico Rosberg    Mercedes    1:37.733    0.231    13
3    14    Fernando Alonso    Ferrari    1:37.953    0.451    17
4    27    Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes    1:38.122    0.620    10
5    22    Jenson Button    McLaren-Mercedes    1:38.636    1.134    16
6    7    Kimi Räikkönen    Ferrari    1:38.783    1.281    12
7    20    Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes    1:38.949    1.447    15
8    26    Daniil Kvyat    STR-Renault    1:39.056    1.554    24
9    11    Sergio Perez    Force India-Mercedes    1:39.102    1.600    21
10    1    Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull Racing-Renault    1:39.389    1.887    16
11    19    Felipe Massa    Williams-Mercedes    1:39.533    2.031    11
12    25    Jean-Eric Vergne    STR-Renault    1:39.862    2.360    26
13    40    Felipe Nasr    Williams-Mercedes    1:40.078    2.576    14
14    3    Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull Racing-Renault    1:40.406    2.904    19
15    99    Adrian Sutil    Sauber-Ferrari    1:40.652    3.150    20
16    13    Pastor Maldonado    Lotus-Renault    1:40.793    3.291    31
17    17    Jules Bianchi    Marussia-Ferrari    1:40.889    3.387    20
18    36    Giedo van der Garde    Sauber-Ferrari    1:40.913    3.411    20
19    8    Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault    1:41.036    3.534    24
20    4    Max Chilton    Marussia-Ferrari    1:41.794    4.292    20
21    46    Robin Frijns    Caterham-Renault    1:42.417    4.915    35
22    9    Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault    1:42.711    5.209    21