McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has set the early pace in first practice ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hamilton completed only 11 laps of the Bahrain International Circuit, the fewest of anyone apart from former team mate Heikki Kovalainen in the Caterham.
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was second fastest, three tenths slower than Hamilton, while Paul di Resta was third fastest in his Force India after being the only driver to set his personal best with the quicker Soft compound.
Chinese Grand Prix winner Nico Rosberg was fourth fastest, followed by Jenson Button, Nico Hulkenberg, Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber – who were all within a second of Hamilton’s time.
Ferrari will be hoping to find more speed from the F2012 over the course of the weekend, as Malaysian GP winner Fernando Alonso was almost two seconds off the ultimate pace in 13th after suffering from visible oversteer.
As to be expected, it was a hot and dusty start to the weekend with air temperature reaching 28C and track temperature even warmer at 38C.
The sandy surface meant that there was little activity at the start of the session, outside of the usual installation laps, with the bigger teams happy to wait until the track surface had been cleaned by other cars before venturing out onto the circuit.
The Force India team of Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta were the first drivers to set representative times, both posting 1’35s on the harder Medium compound.
That was soon bettered by the Lotus pair of Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen, who lowered the benchmark to the high 1’34s.
With just over half of the session to go, the front runners began to leave the pit lane. Sebastian Vettel was the first to break the 1’34 barrier with a 1’33.877, before Lewis Hamilton bettered the reigning world champion by three tenths. That proved to be the fastest lap of the session.
In the final ten minutes, Force India took the decision to run both their cars on the Soft Pirelli compound, with di Resta setting the third fastest time with a 1’34.150.
The 90-degree left-hander of turn 10 proved tricky for some drivers in the opening session. Grosjean, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi, Mark Webber and the Mercedes pair of Rosberg and Schumacher all locking up into the difficult braking zone.
Team radio suggested that di Resta was suffering from an intermittent KERS problem during the session, while Timo Glock had a brief spin at Turn 1 in his Marussia near the end of the session.
Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Best lap | Gap | Laps |
1 | 4 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | 1’33.572 | 11 | |
2 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1’33.877 | +0.305 | 21 |
3 | 11 | Paul di Resta | Force India | 1’34.150 | +0.578 | 26 |
4 | 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’34.249 | +0.677 | 23 |
5 | 3 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1’34.277 | +0.705 | 14 |
6 | 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 1’34.322 | +0.772 | 26 |
7 | 7 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’34.483 | +0.911 | 17 |
8 | 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1’34.522 | +0.980 | 22 |
9 | 9 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus | 1’34.609 | +1.037 | 18 |
10 | 10 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 1’34.847 | +1.275 | 20 |
11 | 15 | Sergio Perez | Sauber | 1’35.024 | +1.452 | 22 |
12 | 18 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1’35.268 | +1.696 | 25 |
13 | 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’35.436 | +1.864 | 21 |
14 | 19 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 1’35.497 | +1.925 | 24 |
15 | 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’35.719 | +2.147 | 19 |
16 | 14 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | 1’35.929 | +2.357 | 24 |
17 | 17 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 1’36.195 | +2.623 | 20 |
18 | 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham | 1’36.330 | +2.758 | 11 |
19 | 21 | Vitaly Petrov | Caterham | 1’36.484 | +2.912 | 18 |
20 | 16 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | 1’36.591 | +3.019 | 20 |
21 | 25 | Charles Pic | Marussia | 1’37.467 | +3.895 | 18 |
22 | 24 | Timo Glock | Marussia | 1’38.006 | +4.434 | 18 |
23 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | HRT | 1’38.877 | +5.305 | 19 |
24 | 23 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | 1’39.996 | +6.424 | 23 |
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
20th April 2012, 10:11
Rumours abound in the paddock that Force India will skip the second practice session. They might seem a little spooked by the petrol bomb incident, but with the session due to end at 3:30pm local time and with the time taken to pack up the garage for the day, the teams will be travelling from the circuit to Manama during Friday afternoon prayers, which have seen some of the largest organised demonstrations – or “days of rage” – both in Bahrain and across the wider Arab Spring movement. While the protest organisers claim that they have no intention of hurting anyone in the Formula 1 community, all it takes is oue group of disinfatuated youths with molotov cocktails for things to turn very ugly, very quickly.
Parikshit Rane (@parikshitrane)
20th April 2012, 12:09
Yup… it’s confirmed tht force india will be skipping / leaving early from 2nd practice session…
Force India considers skipping practice two
Maksutov (@maksutov)
20th April 2012, 13:43
hmmm…. some teams may even boycott the race? . I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some internal politics disagreements going on…
Ian Mark Gondwe (@img343)
20th April 2012, 10:13
He really looks plugged in…just needs to keep focused and everything will fall in place
Cacarella (@cacarella)
20th April 2012, 10:20
Great job Will! ;)
AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
20th April 2012, 10:37
Interesting to see the that the times are quite close to the pace in 2009 qualifying (assuming they used an identical track then), because 1) so far, the cars have been quite a bit off the pace from previous years, and 2) teams seem to take a lot of fuel out already for P1. I thought they used to use P1 for setting the car up for the race. I think I saw Mark Webber doing some slower runs, but not Vettel, Hamilton and Button (I’m not really sure about the rest).
sumedh
20th April 2012, 10:43
Great Job Magnificent Geoffery..
It will be good to have a dry race with no safety car.. to get a true picture of where everyone stands before the Mugello test.
damonsmedley (@damonsmedley)
20th April 2012, 10:52
Nice work Will! I missed the session (forgot it was on!) but it looks like I haven’t missed anything important. Nice report. :-)
Parikshit Rane (@parikshitrane)
20th April 2012, 11:04
Gr8 Job ….
Just One change…. the article says “2012 Bahrain Grand Prix second practice” … It should be first practice….
Will Wood (@willwood)
20th April 2012, 11:26
@parikshitrane Thanks. Unfortunately I’m still trying to work out how to change that part, so you may have to excuse me and I can assure you it’ll be changed later when Keith returns.
Silverkeg (@silverkeg)
20th April 2012, 11:20
WOO! Good report Mag (I refuse to call you Will, Ruins the mystique)
Pretty uneventful session though.
andae23 (@andae23)
20th April 2012, 11:29
Great summary Geoff!
sozavele (@formula-1)
20th April 2012, 11:33
Great article, only error is on the home page, I don’t know who it is down to but it says ‘second practice report’, and it was the first.
PJ (@)
20th April 2012, 11:47
Sweet, you used my image :)
wigster (@wigster)
20th April 2012, 11:55
From those times it looks like Mclaren are either very confident in their pace for this weekend or are potentially being smart and waiting for track conditions to evolve before doing longer runs.
Ferrari just look slow.
Maciek (@maciek)
20th April 2012, 12:12
The oldest folks here
Tell tales strange to hear
Of a fish with aliases aplenty
Whose faith in the Saubers was never relenting
Who one day threw off his Geoffryesque disguise
Saying: ‘I’m a fish damn you, now let me write up those times!
The name’s Wood I tell you and my fins have the talent
To write copy that’s solid, not to mention well-balanced.’
: )
topdowntoedown (@topdowntoedown)
20th April 2012, 12:59
So, Force India look to have skipped FP2. Isn’t that a bit unfair in one way – they’ll have more fresh tyres than the other teams?
ChimpSafari
20th April 2012, 13:27
I’m pretty sure you have to return all usedand unused tyres after each practice session so they’ll gain no advantage.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2012, 13:42
@topdowntoedown That crossed my mind, though I doubt it crossed their mind that much.
It would be ironic if they managed to save a set of softs and make up some places at the end of the race.
VR
20th April 2012, 13:18
I doubt the mechanics involved in the near petrolbomb would think it a reasonable swap. I appreciate other parts of the site are covering the wider situation in Bahrain, but quite simply they should not be racing here.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th April 2012, 13:45
@willwood @magnificent-geoffrey Pretty shoddy reporting!
I jest, it’s good, reads well!
Karthikeyan always seems so horrifically off the pace during FP sessions, even more so than the race and qualifying. What’s that all about? Do they use the drivers for two completely different exploration strategies?