Bahrain Practice 2: Hamilton and Mercedes in a league of their own

Lewis Hamilton on night shift in Bahrain

With his Mercedes sparkling bright under spanking new floodlights featuring 5,000 bulbs, Lewis Hamilton’s hot streak carried over from the first free practice earlier in the day to the night time second session of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, with Nico Rosberg again second best as the Silver Arrows appeared to have a clear edge over their rivals at the end of day one at Sakhir.
With a good car at his disposal Hamilton is fired up, and relishing the role of pace setter. There is a spring in his step and glint in his eye with a single minded focus on the business at hand, a state – which according to Niki Lauda – makes the Briton virtually unbeatable.
Hamilton’s best lap of 1:34.325 was 0.365 of a second up on Rosberg’s best and over a second better than the best of the rest Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. The next ten drivers were within within a second of the Spaniard’s top time, indicating just how Mercedes are currently in another league.

Nico Rosberg second fastest

Ominously for everyone else the single hot lap pace  of the W05 is right up there and the race simulation they ran on the day also set the benchmark. Indications, after day one in the desert, are that Bahrain is Merc’s for the taking, or alternatively their’s to lose.
After a somewhat subdued FP1 session Red Bull came to the party with Daniel Ricciardo setting the fourth fastest time and teammate Sebastian Vettel seventh quickest. Team boss Christian Horner claims another fuel flow sensor failed, a malady which thus far has only afflicted the Renault brigade.
Best of the Mercedes customer posse was Felipe Massa in the Williams with the fifth best time, ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button who ended the 90 minute session in sixth.

Fernando Alonso third fastest

Rookie Daniil Kvyat got his weekend off to an impressive start in Bahrain with the eighth best time, faster in both sessions on the day than more experienced Toro Rosso teammate Jean Eric Vergne who was 12th.
Another rookie, McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen, rounded out the top ten a mere 0.134 of as second down on teammate Button’s best.
Notably out of the top ten was Kimi Raikkonen who continued to struggle relative to his Ferrari teammate and ended the day down in 14th. The Finn battling with the nuances of the finicky F14T, which seemingly is unkind to his driving style.
Frustrations continued for the Lotus lads who again clocked up some relatively good mileage in the E22, but both Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean are woefully off the pace – they ended up 17th and 18 respectively but around three seconds down on Hamilton’s best.
At the sharp end, race pace simulations suggest that Mercedes have the edge but that there is very little to separate Force India, Red Bull and Williams, as well as the Ferrari of Alonso.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:34.325		28
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:34.690	0.365	31
3	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:35.360	1.035	28
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:35.433	1.108	28
5	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:35.442	1.117
6	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:35.528	1.203	21
7	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:35.606	1.281	30
8	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	1:35.640	1.315	31
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:35.662	1.337	22
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1:35.802	1.477	40
11	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:35.920	1.595	9
12	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	1:35.972	1.647	33
13	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:35.998	1.673	18
14	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:36.366	2.041	33
15	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	1:36.962	2.637	13
16	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:36.975	2.650	35
17	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1:37.259	2.934	25
18	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:37.599	3.274	23
19	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:37.800	3.475	15
20	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	1:38.247	3.922	10
21	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	1:38.257	3.932	33
22	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	1:39.136	4.811	30