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Practice 2 at Bahrain

Second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix saw Mercedes throw down the gauntlet but, to the surprise of some, it was not Michael Schumacher who set the fastest time but his young countryman and team mate Nico Rosberg.

The silver cars looked the part around the twisty desert track and Rosberg’s table topping time came early in the session. Up front the expected front runners came to the fore with Rosberg joined at the front by Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren and the sister cars of Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button next in line.

Rosberg’s time – 1:55.409 – was over four tenths quicker than Hamilton’s best and, perhaps crucially, a whisker under half a second up on his illustrious team mate, while Button’s fastest tour was almost four tenths up on the next best man Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull.

All was not well on the other side of the Red Bull garage as Mark Webber could only complete a handful of laps before a technical gremlin curtailed his session early on, and the similarly liveried Toro Rosso of Sebastien Buemi also spent all but a few minutes of the session in the garage.

Behind Vettel came Nico Hulkenberg, the Williams newcomer again eclipsing his more experienced team mate Rubens Barrichello who set 13th best time, and the top ten was completed by the Ferrari pair of Felipe Massa in 7th and Fernando Alonso in 9th, Vitaly Petrov in 8th in the Renault and Pedro de la Rosa in tenth with the Sauber.

Of the new teams Lotus are clearly the better prepared of the three with Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli in 18th and 19th some five and a half seconds off the front running pace, Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi next for Virgin and over a further second away, and Bruno Senna slowest of all in the Hispania Racing car with a best time more than eleven seconds off the pace. Karun Chandhok again failed to run.

Written: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:39:45