Williams` Rosberg takes his turn at the top in Bahrain

Nico Rosberg took Williams to the top of the timesheets in Bahrain on Saturday morning, with a best lap of 1m 32.521s set in the closing moments. That displaced Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, whose 1m 32.726s had just deposed Robert Kubica’s BMW Sauber. Kubica ended up seventh, as four other drivers beat his 1m 33.024s best.

They were: Red Bull’s Mark Webber (1m 32.742s), Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 32.901s), David Coulthard in the second Red Bull (1m 32.918s) and Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima (1m 33.020s).

Yes, it was an odd session, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen only ninth on 1m 33.237s and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton 18th on 1m 33.659s. From sixth down through 19th, 0.8s covered 14 cars.

Nelson Piquet was eighth for Renault, ahead of Raikkonen, on 1m 33.074s, and the Finn was chased by McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen (1m 33.367s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais (1m 33.372s), Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 33.392s), Renault’s Fernando Alonso (1m 33.445s), Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 33.551s), Toyota’s Timo Glock (1m 33.595s), Jenson Button in the other Honda (1m 33.600s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel (1m 33.651s), Hamilton, and Force India`s Adrian Sutil (1m 33.857s).

Nick Heidfeld seemingly continued to sandbag down in 20th on 1m 34.074s in his BMW Sauber, and the two Super Aguris were at the back, Takuma Sato lapping in 1m 34.952s and Anthony Davidson in 1m 35.591s.

Don’t draw too many conclusions from this one, because teams were obviously running differing fuel loads, but just wait for the battle to get through Q1 in qualifying this afternoon.

5.4.2008   ▪ Formula One    ▪ Rosberg, Williams    ▪ www.formula1.com