» 2013 Bahrain GP: Massa tops opening session

Felipe Massa has led a Ferrari 1-2 in the opening practice session at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, as the Italian team continues to show the strong form that helped it claim victory at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.

With the entire field concerned over high tyre wear in the very hot conditions, many of the frontrunners left it until late in the 90-minute session before venturing out to set some lap times.

In fact, it took almost an hour before Massa and teammate Fernando Alonso attempted some timed laps, and they immediately moved to the top of the timesheets, remaining there for the rest of the session.

Nico Rosberg was next up in third-fastest, just 0.134 seconds off Massa’s pace in the Mercedes, while reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel was fourth-fastest.

Force India continued to show its solid early-season pace, with Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil both running comfortably inside the top-ten, placing fifth- and eighth-fastest respectively.

Jenson Button was sixth-fastest in his McLaren, five spots and half a second quicker than teammate Sergio Pérez, while Mark Webber (seventh) and the Lotus duo of Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean rounded out the top-ten.

Chinese Grand Prix polesitter Lewis Hamilton was only thirteenth-fastest in his McLaren, although the performance difference to teammate Rosberg could have been down to each driver running considerably different evaluation and set-up programs in this session.

Two drivers made their inaugural appearance of the 2013 season at this session. Recently re-signed Caterham reserve driver Heikki Kovalainen drove in the team’s CT03 and finished nineteenth-fastest, and commented after the session that the car was very unstable at the rear end.

Marussia reserve driver Rodolfo González also had his first outing in the team’s MR02 in place of Giedo van der Garde. The Venezuelan’s running was curtailed after just seven laps when he suffered a gearbox problem.

2013 Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:34.487		11
2.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F138	1:34.564	+ 0.077	19
3.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:34.621	+ 0.134	22
4.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:34.790	+ 0.303	20
5.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:34.949	+ 0.462	17
6.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:35.069	+ 0.582	22
7.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB9	1:35.101	+ 0.614	19
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM06	1:35.119	+ 0.632	19
9.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:35.345	+ 0.858	17
10.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E21	1:35.611	+ 1.124	14
11.	Sergio Pérez	McLaren Mercedes MP4-28	1:35.640	+ 1.153	23
12.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW35	1:35.783	+ 1.296	16
13.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W04	1:35.792	+ 1.305	16
14.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:36.014	+ 1.527	19
15.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR8	1:36.485	+ 1.998	20
16.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW35	1:36.498	+ 2.011	17
17.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:36.755	+ 2.268	20
18.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber Ferrari C32	1:37.214	+ 2.727	21
19.	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault CT03	1:37.850	+ 3.363	20
20.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham Renault CT03	1:38.401	+ 3.914	20
21.	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:39.445	+ 4.958	12
22.	Rodolfo González	Marussia Cosworth MR02	1:40.215	+ 5.728	7