Bahrain – Free Practice 1: Leclerc, Vettel, and Ferrari towards a return to action

The green light comes on at Sakhir and Giovinazzi is the first driver to leave the pits, followed by the McLarens and Räikkönen. The sun is high in the sky, unsurprisingly, and on the Alfa Romeo side, they’ve also put yellow on the car with flow-vis on the left rear part and on the diffuser.

🚥 GREEN LIGHT 🚥

Race weekend No. 999 is GO!#BahrainGP 🇧🇭 #F1 pic.twitter.com/LqGirsFQ4w

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 29, 2019

For McLaren, aerodynamic work is focused on the front wing with paint on the flaps, while at Red Bull, there’s no paint but pitot tubes positioned to study the airflow downstream of the rear wheels. Following the first wave of installation laps, only Hamilton and Bottas have yet to make their appearance on track.

The great heat of the Bahraini desert prevents us from activity on the track before Max Verstappen finally takes to the track fitted with soft tires. On his radio, he is asked not to overdo it to avoid overheating the tires. On the line, it’s a 1:33.085. After him, Carlos Sainz also completes a flying lap on hard tires, soon followed by the entire field.

Finally out on track, the Mercedes cars appeared at the top of the timesheet on medium tires, with Bottas setting the fastest time at 1:32.340 and Hamilton in third. Following a rear-end loss at the exit of turn 4, Lance Stroll caused the first yellow flag of the weekend. Several drivers slid slightly at the exit of this turn, with the Canadian being the first to lose control.

Steady, Lance 😮

Those tyres are cooked, and there’s some front wing damage after the Canadian spins
#BahrainGP 🇧🇭 #F1 pic.twitter.com/G8GgxWYyV4

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 29, 2019

Turn 14 also provides its share of slides. Verstappen, Hamilton, Norris, and Leclerc see their rear ends give way without much consequence. On the stopwatch, Scuderia now takes the two best times with Vettel at 1:31.747 and Leclerc at 0.137s.

Difficulties seem to be piling up for Williams. Already lagging with their chassis and lack of parts, it’s now the engine causing issues on George Russell’s car. The Briton, who had just taken to the track, had to make his way back to the pit at a slow pace. Small wisps of smoke were escaping from the rear of his car as he was performing a starting procedure at the exit of the pit lane.

At mid-session, here is the ranking: Vettel, Leclerc, Bottas, Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Albon, Hülkenberg, Magnussen, Kvyat, Pérez, Räikkönen, Sainz, Gasly, Grosjean, Norris, Giovinazzi, Russell, Kubica, Stroll.

The top five drivers are within eight-tenths of a second after Max Verstappen’s improvement to 1:31.673. Note that the times recorded by Bottas and Hamilton were done on medium tires. After a first real timed attempt, Pierre Gasly moves up to third place. The second Frenchman, Romain Grosjean, also climbs out of the second part of the table to reach the 7th place. He doesn’t keep his “best of the rest” position as Lando Norris takes it away by five hundredths.

As the final third of the session approaches, the chase for the best time resumes. Valtteri Bottas recovers this honorary title before Sebastian Vettel takes it back, and then finally Charles Leclerc by 263 milliseconds. Absent from this moment, Lewis Hamilton also improved but a wide turn in the final corner deprived him of a provisional best time. Provisional because more than seven-tenths separate Bottas from Vettel and Hamilton was closer to Bottas’s time during his failed attempt.

Behind the top 6, it’s now Sainz occupying 7th place, with Hülkenberg and Ricciardo maintaining their positions in the top 10 in 8th and 10th place, and Kvyat in 9th. Later, Räikkönen brings Alfa Romeo into the top 10 with the 10th fastest time, just 16 thousandths ahead of Ricciardo’s Renault. In the Red Bull garage, a rear wing change is made on Pierre Gasly’s car before returning to the track to attempt to improve the time.

P8 for the Hulk with his latest lap around the @BAH_Int_Circuit.
⏱ 1:32.040 #RSspirit #BahrainGP #FP1 pic.twitter.com/7kJEZecOKN

— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) March 29, 2019

New yellow flag in the last minutes in sector 1. George Russell is trapped at the exit of turn 2 during reacceleration, the same mistake as a certain Max Verstappen last year in qualifying. In sector 2, things get lively at the very end of the session with a major contact between Hülkenberg and Giovinazzi following a disagreement and Romain Grosjean’s front wing breaking after crossing a curb.

The final ranking at the end of the session: