Free Practice 1: Sutil Leads First 2010 Practice!

Adrian Sutil and Force India made the first major impact of the 2010 Formula 1 season by setting the fastest time during the first free practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix. The German disrupted the established order and especially gained the upper hand over the double world champion, Fernando Alonso. Sutil completed a lap in 1:56.583, pushing the Ferrari driver back by 0.183 seconds.

Robert Kubica is the author of another surprise by achieving the third-best time of the morning for Renault. The Pole has proven to be competitive every time he was on track. His yellow single-seater is 0.458 seconds behind Sutil, but more importantly, three tenths better than the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa.

The McLarens of Jenson Button (5th) and Lewis Hamilton (6th) are a bit off the pace even though both drivers fought for the top spot in the early stages of the session. Vitantonio Liuzzi also demonstrates the good pace of Force India with a seventh time ahead of Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP), Mark Webber (Red Bull) and the returning Michael Schumacher, also driving a Mercedes. The seven-time world champion is 0.4 seconds slower compared to his teammate.

Beyond the 10th place, there are more second-tier teams such as Williams and Toro Rosso. Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi are in 11th and 14th place respectively for the small Scuderia, while Nico Hülkenberg and Rubens Barrichello are in 12th and 15th place for a completely revamped Williams team this 2010 season. Only Sebastian Vettel with his RBR6 is in the middle of this pack with the 13th place.

Vitaly Petrov and the second Renault are only 16th while both Sauber drivers still rank ahead of the drivers from the new teams. Pedro de la Rosa performs better than his teammate Kamui Kobayashi with 17th and 18th place, respectively.

It was a major first for Jarno Trulli, driving a Lotus on an official track for the first time since the 1994 Australian Grand Prix. The Italian completed his three installation laps before returning to the pits. Trulli was joined by his teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who also posted good laps, such as a 2.04.225.

Just before the 30 minutes of practice, Hamilton joined the fray at the wheel of his McLaren and lowered the benchmark time to 1:57.759, which was more realistic. He didn’t keep the first place for long as his teammate Button drove faster with a lap of 1:57.068.

The reigning world champion was not the best man on track as, after the hour of testing, the new Ferrari driver took the lead with a time of 1:56.909. Just to ensure things weren’t too familiar, Sutil delivered a strong performance with a time of 1:56.583 with only 25 minutes remaining. It would be the best time of the session.

Trulli finishes the session 7.3 seconds behind Sutil and is the slowest of the timed drivers in 21st place. He is outpaced by Timo Glock, who is the fastest of the drivers from a new team, in this case Virgin. He is 2 tenths faster than the Lotus drivers, with Kovalainen and then Trulli.

HRT conducted checks this morning as Bruno Senna completed a 70-minute shakedown during this session.

Results of Free Practice 1 – Bahrain GP – Friday, March 12, 2010: