Bahrain 2008: Friday Practice Sessions

After a rather unsavoury week in the world of Formula One it is of relief I get to write about what the sport is actually about; brave drivers going as fast as possible. And would you believe it, the fastest in both morning and afternoon sessions was none other than Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. The diminutive Brazilian has taken a fair amount of stick in the past three weeks having failed to score points in the opening two rounds of the championship. But today he popped in a 1.32.233s and a 1m31.420s to out-pace team mate Kimi Raikkonen by just over 0.1s both times.

Nico Rosberg ran well in the morning, putting his Williams FW30 into third and going 0.3s faster than Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren. Kazuki Nakajima also showed improvement by placing the sister Williams in a fine sixth. The afternoon session however saw Nico slip to sixth and Kazuki to eighth. Their performance was great to see though and they are looking quite good for the rest of the weekend.

Lewis didn’t run well in the first session, but it should be noted a few drivers slipped off the dusty track and took detours around the scenery. Although the young McLaren driver started the 90 minute session well, he was unable to keep pace with the two Ferrari’s and ended up fourth. Team mate Heikki Kovalainen suffered a similar fate before breaking for lunch, placing his MP4-23 in fifth.

The afternoon session didn’t go much better for Hamilton either, his McLaren finding its way into the barriers after just 26 laps. The British hopeful dropped the car going through T7 and caused considerable damage to the right-hand side of the McLaren.

It was a shame that I ended what had been a productive day going off the circuit and hitting the barriers at Turn Seven,. I was just pushing and sometimes these things happen. I am absolutely fine, and hopefully the damage to the car is not too bad. Lewis Hamilton.

The other minor surprises from the morning were the off-pace STR’s, Sebastien Bourdais getting the legs on his team mate Sebastian Vettel and landing in fifteenth, Vettel one place behind. Honda also struggled in the morning’s running with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello only just keeping ahead of junior team Super Aguri. Button and Barrichello broke for lunch in eighteenth and nineteenth respectively.

After lunch though the Hondas improved with Button getting up to eleventh and Barrichello sixteenth. Sister team remained at the bottom of the timing sheet with Force India just ahead, sandwiching an off-pace Vettel in twentieth.

Bahrain Friday Practice One

Bahrain Friday Practice Two