Bahrain, FP2 : Vettel leads a Ferrari 1-2

Sebastian Vettel edged team-mate Charles Leclerc by 0.035s as Ferrari continued to dominate the free practice sessions for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

The early running in Friday’s early evening session was made by Mercedes with Valtteri Bottas topping the timesheet with a lap of 1:30.124 set on medium tyres. That left the Australian Grand Prix winner 0.079s ahead of FP1’s quickest man Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton was third.

Ferrari then took the initiative, sending both its drivers out on soft tyres for performance runs just before the half-hour mark. Vettel quickly moved into P1 with a lap of 1:28.942. Leclerc then took second place with a lap of 1:29.083.

Bottas and Hamilton then put in their performance runs, but neither could get near the times set by the Ferraris. Bottas’ first attempt was not perfect and he required a second lap to find a time. But that stage Hamilton had claimed P3 with a lap of 1:29.449, six tenths of a second adrift of Vettel. Bottas then slotted into P3, a tenth off Hamilton.

Curiously, Ferrari then opted to put in a second performance run, which allowed Vettel to reset the benchmark at 1:28.846, three hundredths of a second ahead of Leclerc.

Fifth place in the session went to Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg who posted a useful time of 1:29.669, just a tenth of a second slower than Bottas’ best. The German’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had a trickier outing, finishin in 15thplace and two seconds off the P1 pace.

It might have be3en expected that Red Bull would be closest to challenging Mercedes but Max Verstappen was unable to put together a flawless lap and so finished five hundredths of a second behind Hulkenberg

Verstappen’s team-mate Pierre Gasly had a difficult session as he failed to get the most from his tyres and finished in P12, 0.7s behind his team-mate.

Haas’s Kevin Magnussen too seventh place ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris. The rookie driver finished 0.051s ahead of the second Haas of Romain Grosjean and 0.175s ahead of McLaren teram-mate Carlos Sainz who finished in P11. Tenth place in the session went to Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso.