F1-EL2: Kimi Räikkönen ahead of Red Bull in Bahrain

Kimi Räikkönen managed to set the best time in the second free practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix, where the medium tires were out, with a time of 1'34"154. Although a light downpour cleared the track between the two sessions, the drivers were able to easily improve the pace of the morning with the softest tires of the weekend. The teams seem to greatly favor whitewall tires since they carried out most of their race simulations with this choice of tires. The Finn from the stableenstone remained competitive on the long runs and was able to string together many laps with his tires which seemed to offer little degradation.

Red Bull Racing also showed itself at the forefront since Mark Webber failed three hundredths of the reference time while Sebastian Vettel completed the top three a tenth behind. Fernando Alonso followed at three hundredths while his teammate Felipe Massa, benchmark of the first session this morning, completed the top five with one hundredth behind the Force India of Paul di Resta. Romain Grosjean failed less than half a second behind his teammate after having encountered difficulties with his flat bottom which frequently came into contact with the track even if the latter is not very bumpy. Nico Rosberg placed first Mercedes five tenths ahead of Adrian Sutil and his teammate Lewis Hamilton who was the last less than a second behind Kimi Räikkönen.

The McLaren fail outside the top ten with Jenson Button 11th and Sergio Pérez in 13th place behind La Toro Rosso by Jean-Eric Vergne. Williams F1 Team is still behind since Pastor Maldonado is only 16th ahead of his teammate Valtteri Bottas. Charles Pic finished 19th ahead of Max Chilton who managed to beat his teammate Jules Bianchi by half a tenth.

The final free practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix will take place tomorrow from 11 a.m. (10 a.m. in France). Qualifications will take over from 14 p.m. (13 p.m.).