BAHRAIN GP – Lewis Hamilton leads a Mercedes one-two by two tenths in second practice
Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the seven-time champion was two-tenths faster on the soft tyres than his teammate George Russell. In the first reprehensive running of the weekend the two Mercedes unleashed themselves for the first time this year.
Hamilton set the early benchmark in the session on soft tyres and subsequently set a 30.374s to put distance between himself and the rest of the field. Russell remained his fastest challenger despite lacking traction on his first run, before moving into second ahead of Carlos Sainz.
Mercedes has looked a lot more stable in testing and practice, but the feeling ahead of the season opener is that the order has closed up over the winter. Fernando Alonso was third eight hundredths behind the two Mercedes, with less than a second covering the top ten.
The team’s British driving pairing had already reported the W15 to be far nicer to drive than in the last two years, with the team confident it will provide a far more fruitful base from which to build on with upgrades through the whole season.
But the question is can Hamilton pull off a big surprise, by converting that pace into a win on Saturday? That would end his over two-year wait, the longest in his career wait for a win having last won in Jeddah at the end of 2021?
Sainz ended up fourth ahead of Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. The three-time champion looking to be up there showing the fastest pace when it comes to race simulations. The added caveat to the session is that run plans look to be more divergent and it is the only reprehensive practice session of the weekend.
Despite not topping the times and being just under half a second off, Verstappen and Red Bull are still believed to be the team to beat going into the new season. But, behind Red Bull, it is expected to have remained, if not gotten, closer in the battle for best of the rest between Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren.
These soft-tyre laps rounded out the first half hour, with the second dedicated towards longer runs in preparation for the race, a vital component of the teams’ preparation given that FP3 will not be a representative session.
Fuel loads and car settings in practice, as in testing last week, are unknown and it appears likely that Red Bull will have at least been running theirs reasonably conservatively to mask the car’s true potential.
Red Bull, the reigning world champions and the clear pre-season favourites heading into this week, were behind all their key rivals on headline pace with Verstappen nearly half a second off Hamilton’s benchmark. For everyone, there will be plenty of intrigue going into qualifying Friday to get a first real picture of the pecking order.
Going into the new season, Haas had played down expectations but it doesn’t appear to be near the back, but Nico Hulkenberg was seventh. The German driver only four hundredths off Verstappen, it one of the unanswered questions whether the genuine one-lap pace is better than expected.
Charles Leclerc was ninth going two thousandths faster than Sergio Perez as they completed the top ten. Alex Albon was eleventh the Williams driver outside the top ten by just over two-tenths behind on his only soft tyre, as Daniel Ricciardo spilt the two Williams going two tenths ahead of Logan Sargeant.
Kevin Magnussen put his Haas fourteenth, just over a tenth faster than the second RB of Yuki Tsunoda. Pierre Gasly was half a tenth ahead of Valtteri Bottas as the Sauber driver split the two Alpine’s he was a quarter of a second faster than Esteban Ocon. While the second Sauber of Guanyu Zhou was nineteenth ahead of Lando Norris.
Norris like during last week’s test had a steering wheel issue, and was forced to abort his qualifying sim.