FP1 at Bahrain, News

Raikko goes fastest! – Practice 1 – Bahrain

Kimi Raikkonen dominated the first practice session of the Bahrain
Grand Prix weekend, lapping half a second faster than teammate Felipe
Massa – and nearly a second clear of the fastest non-Ferrari.

The Finn was the first of the leading contenders to take to the
track, emerging from the Ferrari garage after half an hour and
immediately moving to the top of the standings by 1.2 seconds.

Raikkonen then improved by half a second on his next lap and his 1:33.162 proved impossible to beat.

Massa did not attempt a flying lap until nearly an hour into the
session, and his first effort was a second shy of Raikkonen’s, although
he improved to within 0.517 seconds later in his run.

McLaren seemed hard-pressed to match Ferrari’s pace, both Fernando
Alonso and Lewis Hamilton lapping 1.5 seconds slower than Raikkonen at
first.

They closed the gap to 0.9 seconds on their final runs, but both appeared to be struggling for grip all morning.

Alonso went off the road at Turn 10 on two consecutive laps and also
drifted onto the sand at Turn 11, while Hamilton had two moments at the
final corner.

They weren’t the only drivers battling to stay on the road after overnight storms rendered the track very ‘green’.

Heikki Kovalainen went straight on at Turn 1 early in the session,
Alex Wurz had a spin at Turn 7, Massa had to save a wild moment after
getting onto the kerbs at Turn 7, and Scott Speed, Giancarlo Fisichella
and Christijan Albers also had minor incidents.

The Toyotas had set the pace before the top two teams appeared, and
Jarno Trulli’s early time remained sufficient for fifth place, ahead of
BMW’s Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica.

Vitantonio Liuzzi jumped to a surprise eighth position in the final
seconds of the session. His improvement, and similar late gains by the
two Williams, knocked Jenson Button out of the top ten after he had
earlier put the Honda as high as seventh.

But while Toro Rosso broke into the top eight, it was a
disappointing morning for Red Bull, with David Coulthard and Mark
Webber ending the session slower than all bar the Spykers.

For the first time this season, only regular race drivers
participated in Friday morning practice. BMW’s test driver Sebastian
Vettel has a clashing World Series by Renault event at Monza this
weekend, while Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima is focusing on his GP2 debut
in Bahrain.

Pos  Driver        Team                    Time              Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari            (B)  1:33.162           21
 2.  Massa         Ferrari            (B)  1:33.679 + 0.517   17
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes   (B)  1:34.110 + 0.948   17
 4.  Alonso        McLaren-Mercedes   (B)  1:34.161 + 0.999   15
 5.  Trulli        Toyota             (B)  1:34.896 + 1.734   26
 6.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber         (B)  1:35.076 + 1.914   30
 7.  Kubica        BMW Sauber         (B)  1:35.248 + 2.086   24
 8.  Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B)  1:35.292 + 2.130   23
 9.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota    (B)  1:35.375 + 2.213   19
10.  Wurz          Williams-Toyota    (B)  1:35.398 + 2.236   20
11.  Button        Honda              (B)  1:35.445 + 2.283   24
12.  Kovalainen    Renault            (B)  1:35.474 + 2.312   21
13.  R.Schumacher  Toyota             (B)  1:35.573 + 2.411   24
14.  Fisichella    Renault            (B)  1:35.697 + 2.535   17
15.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B)  1:35.726 + 2.564   22
16.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda  (B)  1:35.856 + 2.694   15
17.  Barrichello   Honda              (B)  1:35.911 + 2.749   20
18.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda  (B)  1:36.243 + 3.081    6
19.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault   (B)  1:36.483 + 3.321   18
20.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault   (B)  1:36.513 + 3.351    7
21.  Sutil         Spyker-Ferrari     (B)  1:37.084 + 3.922   27
22.  Albers        Spyker-Ferrari     (B)  1:38.258 + 5.096   29

Raikkonen in optimistic mood!

Kimi Raikkonen met the media ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prixand he seemed to be in optimistic mood as to the outcome of the second race in the space of a week. 

"I don’t think we underestimated McLaren in Malaysia, because we always

knew they were strong," said the Finn. "Hopefully here in Bahrain we

can back at the front. I think it will go well and I am more hopeful

here, especially as we had a good test here. We were not able to run at

the pace we wanted at the last race so I can think it will be better

again here." 

Faced with an implication that he had

left McLaren because of problems with car reliability, Kimi made this

comment: "No one knows why I left McLaren. I had my reasons, but I am

happy here at Ferrari. We have had a few little problems but they are

just minor issues and the season is only two races old. We just need to

make sure we do our best. Nothing is won or lost yet and we will have a

lot of work to do during the season." Asked about the start in Malaysia

he explained it thus: "you always try and make up places at the start

but when that involves your team mate, you have to be careful so that

you both have a clean race. There is certainly no Number 1 and Number 2

driver in the team and hopefully we can both score a lot of points for

the team. We need to keep pushing hard to improve our package. I am

happy being with this team but there is still work to do for me to

ensure I get the most out of it. We need to work on car set up and find

out what is absolutely the best for me. These are small details but

once we get it right I think things will be even better."