Massa fastest, Ferrari strong at Sakhir

The opening practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend saw - as expected - Ferrari top the timesheets. After the strong showing in Malaysia, combined with six days of pre-season testing at Sakhir, Ferrari are very much the pre-race favourites this weekend with Felipe Massa leading the way for the Italian champions after the first practice session.

Massa set the pace this morning with a best lap of 1:32.233s, just over a tenth clear of Sepang winner Raikkonen, while a hot lap from Nico Rosberg in the final minutes of the session vaulted the Williams Toyota driver third fastest, less than two-tenths off the ultimate pace.

McLaren Mercedes have a big challenge ahead of them with Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen fourth and fifth fastest respectively just ahead of Kazuki Nakajima in the second FW30.

Robert Kubica was a solid seventh fastest in the leading BMW Sauber while team-mate Nick Heidfeld looked a little ragged in the second F1.08 on his way to the 14th best time. Like Ferrari, Toyota tested in Bahrain in the off-season and this morning Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock were eighth and 11th fastest respectively.

David Coulthard set the ninth best time in his Red Bull Renault ahead of Fernando Alonso in his R28, Glock and Mark Webber in the second RB4. Nelson Piquet was 13th best in the second Renault ahead of Heidfeld.

The Toro Rosso Ferrari duo of Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel put in more laps than anyone else and ended the 90 minute session 15th and 16th fastest ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the leading Force India Ferrari.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello sat out the first hour of the session before posting the 18th and 19th best times for Honda while Adrian Sutil survived a few wide moments in the second Force India to set the 20th best time. Over at Super Aguri Honda, Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato sat out all but the last ten minutes of running and predictably, brought up the bottom of the timesheets.

Earl ALEXANDER

4.4.2008   ▪ Formula One    ▪ Ferrari, Massa, testing    ▪ en.f1-live.com