(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Mercedes Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time during Free Practice One for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix. Hamilton, the winner last time out in Malaysia set the fastest time of 1m 37.502, 0.231s fastest then team mate and championship leader Nico Rosberg in second place the pair showing once again that the Mercedes W05 package is the car to beat this weekend.
It was an extremely encouraging opening session for Ferrari as Fernando Alonso was third fastest while Kimi Raikkonen was 6th fastest. The Finn, at times appeared to be struggling with front wheel lock ups but the team will be able to work on that in time for the second practice session. It was also an extremely strong morning for Sahara Force India as Nico Hulkenberg who goes into this weekend's race off the back of a fantastic fifth place finish ended the session in fourth place just ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button, making it four Mercedes powered cars in the top five.
Kevin Magnussen was 7th fastest in the second McLaren just ahead of Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat who can be very pleased with his progress this morning as the Russian rookie was the leading Renault powered car in 8th place just ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Force India.
Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top ten in his RB10. Felipe Massa was 11th fastest for the Williams Martini Racing Team while Jean Eric Vergne finished the session in 12th place in the second Toro Rosso.
Williams test and reserve driver Felipe Nasr was 13th fastest as he took Valtteri Bottas' place in the FW36. Bottas will return to the cockpit for the second Friday practice session this evening. Daniel Ricciardo, who goes into this weekend's race with a ten place grid penalty was 14th fastest. That result just goes to show what a good job Toro Rosso did this morning as both their drivers finished the session ahead of their sister team.
Adrian Sutil was 15th for the Sauber F1 Team while Pastor Maldonado managed to rack up the mileage for the Lotus F1 Team finishing the session in 16th place, despite this however the E22 looks like a handful to drive and his team mate Romain Grosjean who finished on the podium here last year ended the session in 19th place behind the Marussia of Jules Bianchi and the second Sauber Giedo Van Der Garde who was taking part in his first Friday session for the Swiss team he will hand back the C33 to regular race driver Esteban Gutierrez for the second session.
Max Chilton was 20th in the second Marussia as the Banbury based team evaluated some new parts on their car for this weekend. Robin Frijns took Kamui Kobayshi's place in FP1 and was 21st just ahead of team Marcus Ericsson who ended the session in 22nd 5.2s behind Lewis Hamilton.
©Ben Johnston 2014
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