Bahrain – FP1: Norris fastest ahead of Gasly and Hamilton

Under the scorching heat of Bahrain, Lando Norris was quick to take his revenge on Max Verstappen, winner at Suzuka, by taking the best time in the first free practice session of the fourth Grand Prix of the season, as he had done in Japan last Friday.

The Briton, however, did not need to face his rival, who followed FP1 from his team's garage. Red Bull is one of the six teams to have let a rookie drive in EL1 (Iwasa), with Mercedes (Vesti), Ferrari (Beganovic), Haas (Hirakawa), Williams (Browning) and Aston Martin (Drugovich).

At McLaren, the two starters were well positioned to contest the first hour of running of the weekend and they confirmed once again the superiority of their car on the track which hosted the pre-season tests. For Ferrari and Mercedes, the session was more complicated. The two teams were without their best-placed driver in the general classification: Frederik Vesti replacing George Russell at Mercedes and Dino Beganovic driving the Ferrari of Charles LeclercThe Italians were able to test their new flooring for the first time, brought in this weekend, and the result was not very conclusive.

Mercedes and Ferrari face first problems

From its first turns, Lewis Hamilton complained of a car that was struggling to run, initially blaming overheated tires, before suggesting a “horrible feeling" behind the wheel. The seven-time world champion had to settle for a time more than three seconds behind the best for a long time, staying on hard tires, before coming back in the final minutes thanks to the switch to C3 rubber, the softest one provided by Pirelli this weekend.

At Mercedes, Frederik Vesti had a lot of trouble keeping his car in check for his third free practice session in F1, the first since 2023. The vice-champion of F2 in 2023, behind Theo Pourchaire, locked the wheels several times, particularly during braking at Turns 1 and 10. The Dane's laps, however, were the only source of information for the company with the star, as Andrea Kimi Antonelli suffered a technical problem early in the session. The Italian's Mercedes lost power, forcing him to return to the pits at low speed. He was never able to get back on track.

On the other hand, at Alpine, Pierre Gasly didn't just roll pianoThe Norman set the second fastest time of the session, just 0 seconds behind Lando Norris. Proof that theAlpine works well: his teammate Jack Doohan finished 7th, but conceding more than a second to the McLaren.

Although the ranking is not representative of the forces present, we note the takeover of the teams in the second part of the table. In the wake of Pierre Gasly (Alpine, 2nd), we must salute Alex's fine performances Albon (Williams, 4th), Esteban Ocon (Haas, 5th), Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber, 6th) or Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls, 8th).

F1 – Bahrain GP

The ranking of Free Practice 1 

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