Bahrain, FP2: Hamilton and Mercedes remain on top in Bahrain

Lewis Hamilton has remained on top of the time sheets in Bahrain as the second free practice has come to an end. Hamilton’s lap of 1:34.323 was followed closely by Mercedes’ teammate Nico Rosberg who posted a lap just 0.365 seconds behind.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso took third place whilst a late dash from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo saw the Australian move into fourth place. Massa, Button, Vettel, Kvyat, Magnussen and Perez made up the top 10 positions of the second free practice session, giving a clearer view of how things may pan out in tomorrows’ Qualifying.

Lotus were quick to get on track to start the second free practice of the Bahrain Grand Prix, sending Romain Grosjean out first. He was quickly followed by a string of other drivers as teams continued to focus on setup for tomorrow’s final free practice and then qualifying.

Just 14 minutes into the session, and 18 of 22 drivers’ had completed a timed lap, whilst the Williams Racing team enjoyed some down time; half an hour into the second session and the Williams team garage was near-empty with not a driver in sight.

Sebastian Vettel also spent the first part of the session complaining about the gearbox of his RB10, saying there was something ‘quite wrong’ with the downshift into third and second gear. This adds to the list of problems for Red Bull in Bahrain, who earlier confirmed they had yet another fuel flow sensor failure. After the first 40 minutes of practice, Vettel was just 11th fastest whilst teammate Daniel Ricciardo was just ahead in 10th. Vettel later improved on his time by moving up to sixth.

The Pirelli option tyre proved to be the tyre with the most grip in the evening practice – wind and cooler evening temperatures gave teams the chance to experience some similar conditions that will be found in qualifying and then again on race days as Bahrain celebrates its tenth anniversary of hosting F1 by racing under lights in the night. Free Practice 2 was the first time the cars were on track in the dark as FP1 took place earlier in the afternoon.

Lotus F1’s Pastor Maldonado’s session came to an early end when he strayed head on into a curb, sending the car into the air and causing enough damage to stop running for the evening. Soon after, Max Chilton’s Marrusia came to a stop on track with the Brit citing a complete loss of power in the drive-train. Adrian Sutil also brought his Sauber to a stop on track, bring an early end to his session too.

With 35 minutes left in FP2, all teams and drivers had completed timed laps with the exception of Williams Racing, who remained in their team garage. Shortly thereafter Massa was finally on track and completing a timed lap – his first lap would put him P13 with 30 minutes to go in the practice with teammate Bottas setting his first timed lap of the session a few minutes after.

The final ten minutes of practice proved to be busiest, with the pack leaders taking to the track to secure the best positions possible going in to tomorrow. Marcus Ericcson brought his Caterham to a stop on track with what looked to be a puncture, whilst Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen told the team that grip was lacking on his car, possibly due to the evening temperatures.

Interestingly, with the track at its fastest of the evening in the final five minutes, both McLaren drivers were out of their cars and not running, seemingly happy with their positions after today with no obvious reasons for being finished early otherwise. Button and Magnussen finished the session sixth and ninth overall.

Lotus F1 will be looking to improve tomorrow after finishing just P17 and P18 for Maldonado and Grosjean respectively, whilst the Marussia’s of Bianchi and Chilton place 19 and 22. Caterham’s Kobayashi and Ericcson remain at the back of the pack.

Free Practice 3 for the 2014 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix stats tomorrow, Saturday April 5, at 15:00 local time.