Fernando Alonso threw down the gauntlet to his rivals with a blistering performance in Bahrain final practice.
Alonso, in his first race for Ferrari at the start of the 2010 season, set the pace with a lap 0.269 seconds quicker than Mercedes’s Nico Rosberg.
Mark Webber was third fastest, ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes and his fellow Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel, as the big names dominated.
Lewis Hamilton was 12th after a wheel problem, with Jenson Button seventh.
Hamilton missed the latter stages of the session and was unable to try his McLaren in its qualifying specification - low tanks and soft tyres - unlike all his rivals in the top four teams.
Ferrari, strongly tipped as the team to beat heading into the new season, showed the true pace of their car for the first time. BBC Sport
Poland’s Robert Kubica, who replaced Alonso at Renault, was eighth, Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi ninth for Force India and German new boy Nico Hulkenberg 10th in his debut weekend with the Williams team.
The session was run in warm and dry conditions that gave a decent indication of the likely form and pace in qualifying when the top runners all lapped with low fuel loads in the closing minutes.
Alonso’s lap appeared to have laid down an ominous marker to his rivals, but Rosberg, rising to the challenge of matching four world champions in the field for a hugely-anticipated 2010 season, almost snatched away the top spot with a bold lap.
Much as expected the final seven places in the 24-car field were filled by the newcomer teams and drivers with Russian new boy Vitaly Petrov winding up 18th in the second Renault ahead of German Timo Glock’s Virgin, the two Lotuses of Finn Heikki Kovalainen and Italian Jarno Trulli and Brazilian Bruno Senna, who was 22nd for Hispania Racing, clocking a valuable 11 laps. AFP
Glock caused a bit of a drama when his Virgin lost its left front wheel which had not been fully secured. Bruno Senna slowed to avoid it, in the only HRT to run.
As Virgin and Lotus made progress to get below the 2m barrier, Jarno Trulli was left on 2m 01.259s in the Lotus T127, while Senna brought his times down to 2m 04.001s for HRT. As expected, Karun Chandhok’s car wasn’t ready for the final session but may be out for qualifying. Formula 1
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