Adrian Sutil claimed the first honours of the new season as the Force India driver topped the timesheets in Bahrain’s Practice One, edging out Fernando Alonso.
Despite the hype surrounding the new season with its new regulations, new teams and returning drivers, the opening session in Bahrain failed to impress.
Long distance heavy-fuelled runs were the order of the morning with Ferrari and McLaren appearing to have the advantage over their rivals, at least until Force India came into play.
Sutil moved to the top with a 1:56.583 beating Alonso and Renault’s Robert Kubica while the two McLaren drivers were fourth and fifth ahead of Felipe Massa. SkySports
The other members of the “big four” teams, Mercedes and Red Bull, had a lower-key session.
Formula 1: Bahrain Grand Prix - First Practice Results
Nico Rosberg was the faster of the two Mercedes drivers in eight, two places and nearly half a second ahead of team-mate Michael Schumacher, who is taking part in his first race since 2006 after coming out of retirement.
They were split by the Red Bull of Mark Webber, whose team-mate Sebastian Vettel was 13th.
The gap between the fastest and slowest times was even bigger than expected, with Sutil more than seven seconds faster than the cars of new teams Lotus and Virgin.
German Timo Glock was the fastest driver from the three new teams, 0.168secs ahead of the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen, whose team-mate Jarno Trulli was 0.122secs further behind. BBC Sport
Virgin Racing was fastest of the three new teams on the grid ahead of Lotus and Hispania. Senna’s three laps were an achievement considering his team’s rush to even compete at Bahrain, and marked the return of the famous Senna name for the first time since Ayrton Senna death in a crash at Imola in 1994.
Senna’s teammate Karun Chandhok did not test due to a hydraulics problem but the Spanish team hoped to get the Indian driver on track for Friday’s second practice.
There will be a third practice session then qualifying on Saturday, ahead of Sunday’s race. The Canadian Press
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