An initially sandy track and surface temperatures that reached 43 degrees Celsius created an interesting backdrop for the first practice sessions on Friday in Bahrain. Teams chased not just speed but high fuel-load running to assess Bridgestone’s prime and option tyres and the degree of degradation that can be expected in the first Grand Prix to be run since Adelaide 1993 without refuelling stops…
Mercedes GP
Nico Rosberg, 1m 57.199s, P8/1m 55.409s, P1
Michael Schumacher, 1m 57.662s, P10/1m 55.903s, P3
Rosberg struggled in the morning to balance the MGP W01 but said he was a lot happier with it in the afternoon. Schumacher also had problems with understeer, which he has yet to dial out.
McLaren
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 56.163s, P6/1m 55.854s, P2
Jenson Button, 1m 57.068s, P5/1m 56.076s, P4
Hamilton noted that tyre degradation will be very high in the high temperatures, and said, like many, that slowing his car on a full tank was tricky. Overall he said he was happy, as did Button, who said that preserving the rear tyres will be difficult, and that his MP4-25’s balance still required work.
Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1m 57.943s, P13/1m 56.459s, P5
Mark Webber, 1m 57.255s, P9/2m 00.444s, P17
Red Bull had a troubled day. Neither driver got a lot of running on the morning’s green track, and in the afternoon Vettel’s RB6 required a change of brakes. At that time Webber was also in trouble with a gearbox problem.
Williams
Nico Hulkenberg, 1m 57.894s, P12/1m 56.501s, P6
Rubens Barrichello, 1m 58.782s, P15/1m 57.452s, P13
Hulkenberg was satisfied that he managed to complete everything he set out to do, while Barrichello reported minor problems in the garage that delayed his running time.
Ferrari
Felipe Massa, 1m 57.055s, P4/1m 56.555s, P7
Fernando Alonso, 1m 56.766s, P2/1m 57.140s, P9
Alonso’s main focus was getting his F10 to perform as consistently as possible on long runs on both tyre options, and complained that the track was bumpier than he had expected. Massa did a lot of work on honing his car’s balance and said he was quite happy with what he had achieved by the end of the day.
Renault
Vitaly Petrov, 1m 58.880s, P16/1m 56.750s, P8
Robert Kubica, 1m 57.041s, P3/1m 58.155s, P15
Petrov reported a few minor problems to begin with, which slightly delayed a busy programme, while Kubica spent most of his time working on tyre comparisons.
BMW Sauber
Pedro de la Rosa, 2m 00.250s, P17/1m 57.255s, P10
Kamui Kobayashi, 2m 01.388s, P18/1m 57.352s, P11
Sauber looked off the pace in the morning after the drivers focused on tyre comparison work, but in the afternoon they both improved. De la Rosa said his C29’s balance still needed a lot of work, while Kobayashi lost time in the morning with a puncture and also struggled later with his car’s balance.
Force India
Adrian Sutil, 1m 56.583s, P1/1m 57.361s, P12
Vitantonio Liuzzi, 1m 57.194s, P7/1m 57.833s, P14
Sutil and Liuzzi were both very happy with their morning’s work, on differing fuel loads. They then picked up a lot of data in the afternoon and are in better shape than most for Saturday.
Tomorrow Race Day!!!!!!!!!!!….
the analyst diary.. 